348 



THE FARMERS' REGISTER. 



heard in the court house where the suit was 

 pending ! 



When Arl<wright set hie spinning frame in 

 operation, the populace broke inio his esiablish- 

 ment to destroy it. They vvislied lo prevent iis 

 introduction and use, under the idea that it would 

 throw manual operaiives under the old system 

 out of employment. In Whitney's case similar 

 violence occurred' — l)Ut the object of it was not to 

 destroy, but to multiply and perpetuate the happy 

 invention which promised to substitute the labor 

 of machinery lor tlie labor of human hands. 



ON THE VI 



OF NITRATE OF SODA AS MA- 

 NURE. 



From tlie London Farmers' Magaziue. 



In the year 1840, being determined to follow up 

 my expermients more mmulely, and also lo prove 

 or disprove an objeciion which had been started 

 against the use of nitrate, to theeflect that it was 

 an impoverisher of land, or at best asiimulantto 

 inert tillages — I again tried it on a rood out of the 

 centre of the acre which 1 had sown with nitrate 

 in 1839, on the thin scopy gravel land, and ma- 

 nured (he remainder of the field with an excellent 

 dressing of good manure, say 20 yards per acre. 

 The nitrate was put on at the rate of 2 cw(. fier 

 acre. The manure was got on and well dressed 

 in early in the season — the nitrate was put on ilie 

 first of May. On the eighth day of iVlay, no 

 rain having fallen from the time of sowing the 

 nitrate, I was walking past the field with an old 

 experienced farmer, (Mr. T. Jennings,) who had 

 that season retired from agricultural pursuits with 

 the strongest prejudice against the use of such a 

 slight and new fangled dressing, when I directed 

 his attention to the field, and inquired il' he could 

 perceive any difference in the appearance of the 

 grass; when, knowing I had used nitrate in the 

 field, he replied, No. 1 then directed his attention 

 to a part of the field /arlher from us, and his ob- 

 servation was that I vvan'ed him to see my land 

 on which the nitrate had been used, and say that 

 it had the advantage over the manure, but thai 

 he was not to be caught ; lor if there were a 

 part of the field looking better than the rest, it 

 was a small plot in a contrary direction. I desired 

 him to point it out, and he directed me to the ni- 

 trate. 1 informed him the nitrate had been used 

 there, but he would not be satisfied until we had 

 been into the field, and found the larger particles 

 of nitrate etill undissolved on the surlace, when 

 from that time until the time of cutting the grass 

 and storing the hay, he was a constant vTsiier 

 and observant watcher over the nitrate, and he 

 assisted me in measuring 64 square yards out of 

 the nitrate piece, and an equal quantity out of the 

 best of the manured land, and when weighed 

 green gave the following result :— Grass cut 26th 

 day of June— weight of grass from 64 yards of 

 nitrate land, 838 lbs. ; ditto from 64 yards of ma- 

 nuicu land, 2521b9. ; being rather more than one- 

 fijurth in favor of the nitrate. Anxious to know 

 whelhej the grass grown by nitrate was more 

 succulent than the other, I had both pieces made 

 as dry as possible, put into two small cocks, and 

 covered with thatch. On the 14fh of July, or 

 eighteen days from the lime of cutting, the day 



being fine, I had the cocks broken out under my 

 ovvn superintendence, and exposed them to the 

 wind and sun until evening, when I had them 

 weighed, and found the nitrate grass wasted from 

 338 lbs. to 88 lbs., being little more than one-fourth 

 the original weight ; and the manured grass from 

 252 lbs. to 66 lbs., being also little more than one- 

 Iburth the original weiglit. Having done this, I 

 Ibund no greai difference in the waste of one lot 

 over the other, but 1 gained the knowledge that 

 the nitrate hay was neither more nor less than 

 1 qr. heavier than the manured hay. Weight per 

 acre from manure, supposing the whole as good 

 as was the trial piece, 2 tons, 4 cwt., 2 qrs. 7 !b. ; 

 and from nitrate, 2 tons, 19 cvvf., 1 qr. 19 lb. The 

 above is the last of my experiments ; and so 

 (ally am I satic^fied with the success of my own 

 trials, thiit this season (1841) I shall use nitrate of 

 soda on 20 acres of urass land, and would recom- 

 mend such of my friends and the public generally, 

 to whom a cheap dressing is of any consequence, 

 not to be carried away by any thing that I have 

 written on the subject into an extravagant use of 

 this, in my humble opinion, wonderful fetilizer ; 

 but first test it on a small scale, and if Ibund lo 

 answer, it will then be lor them lo choose whether 

 they will u^^e or rcllise its assistance." 



VEGETABLE AND AKIMAL NUTRITION. 



Being the substance of a lecture flelivered by Mr. 

 James Allen Ransome, at the Royal Victoria Gal- 

 lery, Mancliester. 



Mr. Ransome commenced by stating, that at 

 the last meeting, in introducing the subject of 

 vegetable and animal nutrition, he had alluded in 

 general terms to the nature ol the materials em- 

 ployed as elements, or as engaged in the first pro- 

 cesses ol nutrition. He had remarked, that man, 

 although an omnivorous animal, was yet ultimate- 

 ly dependent upon the vegetable kingiiom for his 

 nutriment; for the flesh meat he took as Ibod de- 

 rived its nutriment from the vegetable creation ; 

 so that man is dependent, directly or indirectly, 

 upon the vegetable kingdom, lor the materials 

 which constitute the aliment from which his ovvn 

 frame is to be formed. This, then, led to the con- 

 sideration of the materials composing the vegeta- 

 ble kingdom ; and he had shown experimentally, 

 that a simple vegetable product — sugar — contained 

 three elements in a state of combination — carbon, 

 oxygen, and hydrogen, which were the three 

 principal elements entering into the composition 

 of vegetables. But he had prepared ihem to 

 look lor other elements, in order to complete (he 

 series. They next considered from what sources 

 these respective elem;^nts were derived ; and after 

 a short review of the notion that carbon, their 

 principal constituent, was derived from humus, or, 

 as it was also called, humin, or hvmic acid, he had 

 ventured, on the authority of Professor Liebig, 

 the celebrated German chemist, to show that 

 much doubt miglit be entertained on this subject, 

 and that it was more reasonable to suppose that, 

 instead of carbon being derived from humus, it 

 was derived from one of the constituents of the 

 atmosphere, for carbonic acid was found to con- 

 stitute one-lhousandth part of the weight of the 



