72 CHEMICAL MANURES. 



Rough products by the mixture of manure and 



chemical fertilizers $5,951.96 



Rough products with manure alone 4,202.42 



Difference in favor of first system $1,749.54 



$1749.54 excess of product against an excess of expense of 

 $1140, the profit is 100 per cent. The rolling fund was originally 

 $6650, increased to $7790, and the profit was threefold. I need not add 

 that the price of sales w r as the same in both cases. I admit without 

 change those that M. Boussingault took as the basis of his valuations. 



Is this result a maximum ? Far from it. I have fixed the returns 

 at 20 per cent, below their real value. 



Here are the results obtained by M. Lavaux for three years from 

 the farm of Choisy-le-Temple (Seine-et-Marne) : 



1865, wheat 53 bu. 



1866, colza 48 " 



1867, March wheat 49 " 



1867, beets 53,333 Ibs. 



The increase of profit realized on fifty acres, which form the culture 

 of Bechelbronn, is not the only advantage to be drawn from the 

 chemical fertilizer. 



On the 447-J- acres composing the domain, to produce manure 135 

 acres must be devoted to the meadow, the returns from which hardly 

 exceed 3600 pounds of hay the acre. 



By means of an appropriate formula this return can easily be 

 brought to 7111 pounds, which will put, without any diminution of 

 products, 33 to 40 acres at our disposal for other culture. 



You know that this result will be more surely attained by repla- 

 cing the meadow with fields of lucerne. 



The use of chemical fertilizers in the case now occupying us pro- 

 duces two equally advantageous results viz., to increase the return 

 of all the cultures ; to reduce the surface devoted to the raising of 

 cattle without diminishing the number of animals ; or to increase the 

 number, if we like best, to at least 30 per cent. 



When the agriculturist has no fixed idea as to the true agents of 

 fertility with which he should precede the production of manure and 

 cereals, and draws all the fertilizers from his own land, he cannot 

 give the meadow less than the half of the whole surface without 

 wasting the soil and condemning himself to an almost inevitable 

 ruin. 



In the economy of this regime the principal use of the meadow is 

 to throw off into the air the azote that the cereals ought to find in the 

 soil ; and the animals being the only method of preparing manure, 

 the hay of the meadow and the straw of the cereals are compounded 

 as if of one nature. 



With the chemical fertilizers the agricultural problem is simplified, 

 and becomes susceptible of a more independent solution. There can 

 no more be a question of absolute rule. The maxim, Make meadows 

 and raise cattle to have cereals, loses the character of an axiom which 



