ON MANURES. 169 



"in another of his fields, with a clay soil, a small portion of it 

 was manured, thirty-two years ago, by a former tenant, with 

 bones; and that, although it had been twenty yearsjn tillage, 

 yet that part still shows a superiority over the rest.'' 



CHAPTER XII. 



MISCELLANEOUS MANURES CONTINUED. GREEN CROPS. 



Green Manures consist in fall crops of succulent plants,— 

 such as buck-wheat, rape, tares, and many others, — which are 

 ploughed into the land, and have been applied in many in- 

 stances with very singular advantage, more especially on cal- 

 careous, gravelly, and sandy soils, the fertility of which has 

 been thus greatly improved. The practice dates as far back 

 as the time of the ancient Romans, and is still continued 

 throughout Italy, even in places where the dung of animals 

 can be procured in abundance. The climate of that country 

 is, however, more favourable than ours to the system, for the 

 corn harvests are so much earlier, that they are oif the ground 

 in time for succeeding green crops to arrive at full maturity; 

 and it is there thought that nothing tends more to the improve- 

 ment of the land than ploughing them down.* It has indeed 

 been held by many intelligent men who support an opposite 

 opinion, that the land which produces these crops will be 

 deprived of their vegetative properties in proportion to their 

 luxuriancy ; and, therefore, that, by returning the crop into 

 the same land, its fertility can only be increased in the same 

 degree as it was reduced by their reduction. This theory, 

 however, can only be supported upon the principle that plants 

 are fed more by the soil than by the atmosphere; whereas it 



*In Tuscany, the plant which is chiefly sown for this purpose is the white 

 lupin, a leguminous annual plant, well known in our gardens, which grows 

 in sandy and loamy soil, to the height of two or three feet, with a stem of 

 equal strength with the bean, and bearing somewhat similar blossoms and 

 pods ; but tiie produce is so bitter that it is unfit for the nourishujent of either 

 man or beast,. until prepared by some manufacturing process. It arrives to 

 a considerable size in the month of October, when it is ploughed into the 

 soil ; and very extraordinary fertilizing properties are attributed to its effects, 

 which are ascribed to the great quantity of glutten which it is known to 

 contain. 



