THE GENESEE FABMEE. 



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fill, reliable, and best agricultural chemist in Great Britain — one who prefers to investi- 

 gate the laws of nature in the field and laboratory, rather than to obtain an ephemeral 

 popularity by writing series of gassy articles on subjects about which he has nothing 

 new to say. If such a series of experiments as these gentlemen have made do not 

 amount to anything, they and all other experimentalists had better quit the business, 

 and go to work with the pen and examine and explain, deductively, the various theories 

 now agitating the agricultural community. They would in this way build up a system 

 of agriculture that would rest on an impregnable fortress — so long as experiments were 

 held as showing nothing. 



Mr. B. said he made the above statement advisedly, and promised in a future number 

 to bring forward facts and experiments as much entitled to credence as Mr. La web'. 

 We should have replied to this article sooner, but waited to see the facts promised ; but 

 in the September number of the. Journal of Agriculture, there is another article devoted 

 to Mr. Lawes, but not a single fact or exj^eriment brought forxvard that supports the 

 mineral theory, or is adverse to the theory Mr. B. is endeavoring to explain away. 



Mr. 13. cites Johnston and Norton, to show that nitric acid and ammonia are formed 

 in the atmosphere ; and that when lime, potash, soda, &c., are applied to the soil, nitric 

 acid is obtained, which is equally valuable as ammonia for supplying nitrogen to 

 plants ; ( ? ) and asks : 



"Is it possible there was no nitiuis of potash or soda formed from nitric acid derived from the 

 atmosphere during the seven years course of culture, when potash and soda were so liberally supplied 

 to the soil? Again, it is said, and pretty generally believed, that sulphate of lime (gypsum) will fix 

 a portion of the ammonia that falls in the rains. Would not the sulphate of magnesia, (which Mr. 

 Laws so liberally applied to some plots of his field,) fix the ammonia of rain water, as readily as 

 gypsum ? An imperial gallon of water, at the ordinary temperature, will dissolve only about four 

 ounces of gypsum ; while the same amount of water will dissolve four pounds of sulpliate of magnesia. 

 But what is still more singular, in several instances he applied 150 lbs. of sulphuric acid, one of the 

 most efficient agents for decomposing caibonate of ammonia, and changing it to a sulpliate, one of the 

 two compounds of ammonia, that had such a wonderful effect in doubling his crop of wheat — was 

 there no sulphate of ammonia added to the soil during the seven years trial — from the ammonia of 

 rain and snow water? If there was, wliy should not this naturally-formed sulphate have had some 

 beneficial effect, as well as that artificially applied ? To my view, some of these things are inexplicable." 



The 150 lbs. sulphuric acid was not applied in any instance in the free state, but 

 combined with 200 lbs. calcined bone dust — thus forming the soluable article super- 

 phosphate of lime, at present so much recommended by certain parties as a manure for 

 the wheat crop. 



" Was there no sulphate of ammonia added to the soil, during the seven years' trial, 

 from the ammonia of snow and rain water?" We answer, there was — sufficient to 

 grow from 15 to 23 bushels, varying as less or more rain fell during the growing season, 

 and thus supplied less or more ammonia to the plants. Mr. B. starts with the assump- 

 tion that the atmosphere is capable of supplying an unlimited quantity of ammonia to 

 the soil, providing the proper means are used to attract and fix it ; and therefore the 

 fact that sulphate of lime and sulphate of magnesia, " said and generally believed to be 

 capable of fixing the ammonia of rain water," did not increase the crop, while ammonia 

 artificially supplied did gi'eatly increase it, is "inexplicable." Precisely it is, if the 

 assumption is correct ; but where is the proof of it. We think — not because " it is said 

 and generally beheved," but because experiments show it — that a good ivheat soil, if 

 properly drained and tilled, so that the water can percolate through it, will retain all the 

 ammonia brought to it by rain and snow water ; and therefore the addition of the sup- 

 posed fixers, gypsum and epsom salts, would not increase the supply of sulphate of 

 ammonia available for the plants. We know that the amount of- ammonia brought to 

 an acre of land each year, by rain and snow, is much more than a crop of wheat ever 

 contains ; but where is the evidence that in the gi-owth of the plant there is not a 

 destruction of ammonia. Mr. Lawes contends that there is such a destruction, and 



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