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1^1) THE GENESEE FAEMER. 



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the growth of cereals, for the amtoonia brought to the plants by rain is probably quite 

 as much as that which a large crop of wheat, &c., contains. The soil under such 

 circumstances would be first impoverished of the mineral elements or inorganic constit- 

 uents of plants, and man would possess the power of utterly exhausting the soil, which 

 under existing laws is mercifully withheld from him. We know that he can impoverish 

 to an alarming extent the soil he tills, but he can not exhaust it in such a manner but 

 what a skillful farmer can restore it to fertility without, in most cases, the direct appli- 

 cation of the removed inorganic ingredients. That is to say, the cultivation of our com- 

 mon crops, from exhausting the soil of its organic matter and its available inorganic 

 ingredients, impoverishes it to that degree when crops can no longer be grown without 

 serious loss ; yet at the same time there is lying latent in the soil sufficient inorganic 

 constituents of plants for large crops, and which a better cultivation and a more scien- 

 tific rotation of crops would render available and the farm productive. We admit that 

 were a cheap source of ammonia discovered, it would then be not only possible but 

 quite easy to exhaust our now fertile wheat soils, so that they could not be restored 

 without carrying back the mineral elements removed in the crops and animals exported 

 from the farm. But such a state of things does not exist, no cheap means of affording 

 ammonia to plants having been discovered ; and at present, in this country at least, we 

 know of no way of supplying our cereal crops with the required ammonia without at 

 the same time increasing the available inorganic constituents. Thus, if we grow clover, 

 turnips, beans, or peas, or purchase oilcake, bran, &c., to be consumed by cattle, we 

 supply ammonia, but at the same time we also supply the necessary available minerals : 

 and, as we have said before, these nitrogen collecting plants require more available min- 

 eral matter to exist in the soil than do wheat, corn, &c. ; so that when the soil became 

 only partially impoverished, clover and turnips would not thrive, but little ammonia 

 would be supplied for the cereals, and their yield would be so small that the soil could 

 no longer be cultivated with profit ; and this while there was still a large amount of the 

 inorganic constituents existing in the soil. Hence, so long as our lands will produce 

 good crops of clover, peas, beans, &c., we may rest assured that there is no lack of avail- 

 able inorganic constituents in the soil for a very large crop of wheat. If, under such 

 circumstances, we obtain by good tillage not more than twenty bushels of wheat per 

 acre, we may safely conclude that all that is required to raise it to thirty-five or forty 

 bushels, is 75 or 100 lbs. of ammonia in any available form. If clover, peas, turnips, 

 <fec., do not thrive, the soil is probably deficient in available inorganic matter ; and in 

 such circumstances an application of bone dust, superphosphate of lime, unleached and 

 leached ashes, containing as they do the deficient substances, will be attended with much 

 benefit for these crops. These clover and pea crops will in their turn furnish the required 

 ammonia and minerals for the succeeding crops of wheat and corn ; and so, in this 

 indirect manner, an application of inorganic ingredients is followed by increased yields 

 of the cereal crops. We are aware that there are many well recorded experiments in 

 which ashes, lime, &c., have giren greatly increased crops of wheat and corn, yielding, 

 in instances that have come under our own observation, fifty bushels of wheat per acre ; 

 yet these instances, however numerous they may be, by no means disprove the correct- 

 ness of the principles here laid down ; they rather, to our view, confirm them. 



It is well known that ashes, lime, &c., greatly accelerate the decomposition of organic 

 matter ; and that in many of our lands there is much organic matter lying latent in the 

 soil in such a condition that plants can not take it up. An application of lime or ashes 

 to such soils would give vitality to this organic matter ; the nascent gases would act on 

 the mineral matter of the soil, and both inorganic and organic matter would be rendered 

 available to the plants. In the instances mentioned where ashes and lime have yielded 

 fifty bushels of wheat per acre, the increase was most undoubtedly dependant, not on 

 the manure supplying the actual inorganic constituents of the wheat plant, but in de- 





