JOHN P. NORTON'S ADDRESS. 241 



the case, on some of our rich prairie lands. Unhappily, there 

 are but few farmers who have the good fortune to possess land 

 of this description, and therefore, in the vast majority of in- 

 stances, ammonia will be found beneficial, and the farmer will 

 have good crops, wlio uses it judiciously in connection with 

 other manures. 



The soils of the best districts in England are in higher con- 

 dition than any of ours, except in peculiar cases, for their aver- 

 age crops of wheat, oats, turnips, &c., are much larger than 

 ours. These soils, then, might be supposed well stocked with 

 ammonia, and ought to contain a number of tons per acre. It 

 is, however, a singular fact, that the price of guano, in the Eng- 

 lish markets, has for several years been ruled by the quantity 

 of ammonia that it contained. During my stay in Edinburgh, 

 samples from more than five hundred cargoes were analyzed in 

 the laboratory of Professor Johnstone, and were sold by his 

 analyses, fluctuating in price as they indicated more or less 

 ammonia. Had there been any mistake in this method of esti- 

 mating value, experience would soon have detected it. 



The farmer then, I should say, ought to collect and apply ni- 

 trogen in every accessible form ; not because it is more necessary 

 than other constituents of the soil, but because it does not so 

 often abound there, and because plants obtain it from the at- 

 mosphere with less facility than they do the other elements 

 of their organic part. Ammonia being the most common com- 

 pound, containing nitrogen, his attention will naturally turn 

 chiefly in that direction. 



I have touched upon this subject at the present time, from a 

 conviction of its importance to the cause of agricultural im- 

 provement. When farmers are told, on the one side, that a cer- 

 tain substance is valuable to them, and, on the other, that it is 

 useless to trouble themselves about it, they are of course per- 

 plexed, and can only fall back upon results ; even these are lia- 

 able to misinterpretation, but, when they are so nearly uniform, 

 as in the case of ammonia, the practical man is justified in dis- 

 regarding mere assertions to the contrary. 



I am not so vain as to suppose, that my views upon this ques- 

 tion will convince those who hold contrary opinions, but if they 

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