VALUE OF ARTIFICIAL MANURES. 29 



which are really worth the money which is asked for them, 

 there are others, scarcely worthy the name of artificial manures, 

 offered for sale and finding ready purchasers ; and I have come 

 to the conclusion that, in the first instance, the proper use to 

 which artificial manures should be applied by farmers is not so 

 well understood as it is desirable it should be ; and, secondly, 

 that there are in the case of the small farmer, peculiar circum- 

 stances which account for the anomaly that the best manures 

 often do not find so ready a sale as manures altogether of an 

 inferior character. 



With respect to the first point I would observe that it is quite 

 an erroneous view to think that an artificial manure should 

 answer the same purposes for which common farmyard manure 

 is usually applied. Farmyard manure is a perfect and universal 

 manure, and, if you have plenty of it, it would be foolish buying 

 artificial manures ; but the question is, can you always make 

 farmyard manure with a profit ? can you always feed animals 

 with a profit so as to produce sufficient home-made manure tc 

 answer your purpose ? Supposing you can feed with profit only 

 a limited quantity of stock, would you not make that quantity of 

 home-made manure which you produce by the judicious selection 

 of artificial manures go once or twice as far as you would without 

 the use of artificial manures ? I answer that question by a 

 decided " Yes." I think the judicious selection of artificial 

 manure will not supersede farmyard manure, but will enable 

 the intelligent agriculturist to make one ton go twice as far as it 

 would without the simultaneous use of artificial manures. 



Some manufacturers recommend as a peculiar feature of their 

 articles which they offer for sale, that they are equal to the best 

 home-made manure ; that they are, in fact, universal manures, 

 answering to every description of crops ; but I think the very 

 recommendation is a condemnation of their manures : for it must 

 not be the aim of the manure manufacturer to produce a manure 

 similar in character to farmyard manure, but rather to produce 

 manure not partaking of the characters peculiar to farmyard 

 manure. You must well remember that farmyard manure exercises 

 a mechanical as well as a chemical effect upon the soil and the 

 crops which are intended to be raised. The mechanical effect 

 produced by farmyard manure tends to lighten the soil, and 

 admit freely air and atmospheric food for plants, and indirectly 

 to offer for the plants the food of the soil, which is present in 

 it in an insoluble state, and which, by the introduction of farm- 

 yard manure, is rendered soluble. These mechanical effects, 

 which are intimately connected with the chemical effects which 

 farmyard manure produces in soils, cannot well be imitated by 

 any artificial manure. It is irrational to expect artificial manures 

 to produce these mechanical effects ; you ought rather to look to 



