[^~[) 29S THE GENESEE FABMEE. ^ ^' 



means let the drones remain at home, for their unworthy examples do a deal of mis- 

 chief in any legislative body. Idleness, drunkenness, fighting, and blackguardism work 

 badly with grave and peaceful legislation. In no other place is a thorough reform so 

 much needed as at the capital of the United States. If it were possible for the people 

 to see all that their public servants do in Washington, many a popular man would be 

 ruined. But so long as the people are kept in ignorance of vices the most demoralizing, 

 and of public duties uniformly neglected, neither agriculture nor any other great indus- 

 trial interest will be properly attended to. The patronage of Congress and the Depart- 

 ments is too important to the journals of the metropolis for them to expose the short- 

 Gomiuf--s of the men that hold the strings of the public purse. Restraints more potent 

 and salutary are greatly needed ; but it is not so easy to determine from what sources 

 they are to come. More care ought to be excercised in selecting delegates. The dispo- 

 sition of fifty millions a year presents numerous and powerful temptations to favoritism, 

 fraud, and downright robbery of the treasury. One reason why nothing is done for 

 agriculture, is that Congress has too much money to dispose of at each session. Rural 

 sciences, and the advancement of tillage and husbandry, stand no chance in a general 

 scramble for indefinite millions of plunder. 





« THEORIES EXAMINED- AND EXPLAINED." 



Such is the comprehensive heading of a series of articles which Mr. Levi Bartlett, of 

 Warren, N. IL, is writing for the Boston JStirnal of Agriculture. Hitherto three 

 letters have appeared, all more or less directed against those who doubt the correctness 

 of the so-called "mineral manure theory." Number two is an examination and expla- 

 nation of Mr. Lawes' experimenis and results on wheat culture, which have been pub- 

 lished in full detail in the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England. It 

 is exceedingly unfortunate for the cause of truth and the advancement of agricultural 

 improvement, that neither Liebig nor Mr. B. appear to have read the pamphlets written 

 by Mr. Lawes himself, but have taken up their able pens to refute what they obtained 

 only at second hand. Mr. B. confines himself to a few facts respecting Mr. Lawes' 

 experiments, which we mentioned in the June number of the present volume of the 

 Genesee Farmer, when speaking of the benefits derived from plowing in green crops as 

 manure; and upon these few facts, quoted for a special purpose, Mr. B. forms his 

 opinion respecting the whole of Mr, Lawes' experiments, and says : 



" I presume there can be no doubt of the correctness of the experiments made by Mr. Laws, 

 neither of the results or conclusions to which he arrived, as regarded the particular soil upon which 

 he experimented. To my mind, the result of his seven years' labors does not establish any general 

 principle in agriculture, that can be safely followed, or practically be rehediipon ; neither docs it in 

 any way determine the value or use of applying any of the salts of ammonia to the wheat crop, on 

 ether kinds of soil, nor does it depreciate the well known utility of manuring other soils with potash, 

 soda, sulphate of magnesia, calcined bones, &c., or settle any othor relative question,* only so far as 

 regards the particular soil on which he experimented, and othei-s of precisely the same mineral and 

 organic composition." 



This is rather a severe judgment respecting the value of experiments which have cost 

 at least one hundred thousand dollars, and been made by scientific gentlemen of 

 acknowledged capability and accuracy. Dr. Gildeut has given his entire time to the 

 experiments for nine years ; and we presume that even Mr. B. will admit that he is a 

 gentleman every way competent to make experiments that shall lead to the elucidation 

 of great and fixed agricultural principles, inasmuch as he has spent considerable time m 

 the best continental and British laboratories, and received the degree of Doctor of Phi- 

 losophy from the great Liebig himself. Our own opinion is, that he is the most care- 



