LIEBIG S MANURES. 17 



LIEBIG'S MANURES. 



If the name and the subject which these two words present Avould not pro- 

 voke the curiosity of the reader to peruse what follows, and judge for himself, it 

 is not to be expected that anything we could say would induce him to do so. 



We are aware that the topic is a dry one, but that, after all, depends very 

 much, with all questions, on the spirit with which they are encountered. 



If men read for the sake of enlarging the bounds of their knowledge, there is 

 no disquisition that can prove dry to him who feels, as he proceeds, that delight- 

 ful enjoyment of the mind which the conscious accretion of knowledge brings 

 along with it. If those who favor The Farjiers' Library with their patronage 

 take pleasure only in reading accounts of wonderful crops and descriptions of 

 large, fat sheep and bullocks, and simply of how poor land may be made rich, 

 by plowing in ashes, and lime, and manure — things well known since long before 

 the days of Varro and Columella — we fear they will be disappointed ; and if 

 their reading be only to have their sympathies excited and their passions moved, 

 why, the better way would be to give orders to their bookseller to supply them 

 with the latest novels as they come every day reeking from the press. But we 

 flatter ourselves that our patrons are for the most part persons who are seeking 

 to get at the philosophy of their business, that they may follow and enjoy it as 

 one that invites exercise and industry of the mind as well as of the body. 



If that be not the object, what is the use of taking such a work as we are en- 

 deavoring to make of this ? If facts only are what they seek, any one of our old 

 volumes of the American Farmer, as far back as 1S19, will tell nearly the whole 

 story. 



It may have appeared in some other shape or work, but the only one ia which 

 we have seen what follows from the pen of one of the most distinguished in- 

 quirers into the science of Agriculture, is the pamphlet which is here copied, 

 and which was kindly placed in our hands by an English professional gentle- 

 man who has embraced the science and literature of Agriculture within the 

 range of his extensive inquiries. The perusal will require and reward the read- 

 er's close attention, and be pronounced an appropriate and valuable addition to 

 every farmer's library. 



Professor Liebig proceeds next, among other things, to show and expose the 

 fallacy of the belief entertained by some, that in applying bone manure, plaster 

 of Paris (gypsum) nitrate of soda, &:c., they may dispense with manure and with 

 other elements of the soil. 



PREFACE, BY THE MANUFACTURERS OF PROF. LIEBIG'S MANURES. 



Through accurate knowledtre of what elements of the soil serve to nouris^h our cultivated 

 plants, and are thus removed with the crops, minute cxaminatiou.'s of those properties which give 

 to the different kinds of stiiblo manure their fenilizin-^ ett'ects, and careful investigation of the 

 causes why the substitution of gnano and other artificial manures has in some cases produced highly- 

 beneficial results, while in others it has proved utterly inefficacious — why suece.s-sful only in some 

 seasons, and upon .some descriptions of soil — the eminent chemist whose name is attached to the 

 succeeding Address has di.scovered certain compounds which can not only be employed with ad- 

 vantage in place of the best stable dung, but which, possessing none of the defects of guano, are 

 of such a nature thiit different stales of moisture in the atmosphere during the growth of the 

 plants, or different localitie.s, will not diminish their eQicacy. 



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