248 J. E. TESCHEMACHER'S REMARKS. 



made many experiments with flowers and their seeds, which 

 appeared to him to confirm these views thoroughly, but still he 

 merely offered them as his own individual opinions. 



Dr. Krocker, in Giessen, had analyzed many soils, some from 

 the western parts of this country, in all, he had found large 

 quantities of ammonia salts, in some, as much as eight thousand 

 pounds to the acre twelve inches deep, from these experiments, 

 an opinion had prevailed, and was now held by many, that it 

 was quite unnecessary to put ammoniacal manures on the soil. 

 Now, theory alone, unless confirmed by practice, was not only 

 useless, but injurious. Large quantities of inorganic salts were 

 prepared in England, with exact instructions from Liebig, under 

 the idea that they alone were necessary to produce luxuriant 

 crops, but they had failed, in every instance of application. 

 And nearly all the artificial manures there manufactured, and 

 it was now a large business, contained ammonia in some shape 

 or other. It is, however, not to be doubted, that large quanti- 

 ties of ammonia come down with the rain and snow, and, when 

 these fall heavily, some portion of the ammoniacal salts are 

 washed down below the influence of the heat of the sun, and 

 thus become permanently stored in somes ubsoils; these, when 

 brought to the surface by the subsoil plough, exhibit very luxu- 

 riant crops. The ammonia, however, of moderate, summer 

 rains, is either used by the crops, or is raised from the surface, 

 by evaporation, to return again in the next shower. The vari- 

 ations of soils and circumstances, however, had led him not 

 to trust implicitly in any general, scientific theories, unless con- 

 firmed by very numerous and very well authenticated experi- 

 ments. 



THIRD EVENING. 



At the period of the commencement of the application of sci- 

 ence to agriculture, the scientific calculation was as follows : — 

 If the farmer sells annually, the produce of his farm, say, hay, 

 grain, milk, butter, cheese, calves, hogs, &c., he carries from 

 that land more produce than he can restore to it, in the shape of 

 manure, from his own farm, and the land must be soon exhaust- 

 ed, unless he buys manure — and the calculation appeared very 

 fair. But practice, as well as theory, had shown it to be erro- 



