RESTORING FERTILITY TO THE SOIL. 333 



Upon land of this description meat-making is the backbone 

 of the system, which must be adopted, and a large breeding 

 flock of sheep the first essential towards success. 



Science can make very little improvement upon the four- 

 course rotation roots, barley, clover, and wheat, unless, per- 

 haps, it may be by keeping the land in clover, or mixed grass 

 and clover, for two or three years. 



A good deal of the land I was inspecting was so light, that, in 

 fact, it was hardly more than sand, and for some years it had been 

 left to grow anything that came up, undisturbed by the plow. 



To a practised eye, the character of the natural vegetation is 

 a sure indication of the fertility of the soil. Where herds of 

 buffaloes are to be seen their sides shaking with fat it is 

 quite evident that the pastures upon which they feed cannot 

 be very bad ; and in the same way, where a rank growth of 

 weeds is found springing up upon land that has been abandon- 

 ed, it may be taken for certain that the elements of food exist 

 in the soil. This ground was covered with vegetation, but of 

 the most impoverished description, even the "Quack" or 

 " Couch-grass" could not form a regular carpet, but grew in 

 small, detached bunches j everything, in fact, bore evidence of 

 poverty. 



Possibly, the first idea which might occur to any one, on 

 seeing land in this state, might be : Why not grow the crops by 

 the aid of artificial manures ? 



Let us look at the question from two points of view : first, in 

 regard to the cost of the ingredients ; and, secondly, in regard 

 to the growth of the crop. 



We will begin with wheat. A crop of wheat, machine-reap- 

 ed, contains, as carted to the stack, about six pounds of soil in- 

 gredients in every one hundred pounds ; that is to say, each 

 five pounds of mineral matter, and rather less than one pound 

 of nitrogen, which the plant takes from the soil, will enable it 

 to obtain ninety-four pounds of other substances from the at- 

 mosphere. To grow a crop of twenty bushels of gram and 

 two thousand pounds of straw, would require one hundred and 

 sixty pounds of minerals, and about thirty-two pounds of nitro- 

 gen ; of the one hundred and sixty pounds of minerals, one- 

 half would be silica, of which the soil possesses already more 

 than enough ; the remainder, consisting of about eighty pounds 

 of potash and phosphate, could be furnished for from three 

 to four dollars, and the thirty-two pounds of nitrogen could 

 be purchased in nitrate of soda for six or eight dollars. 



