WASTE OF MANURE IN ENGLAND. 



Thousands of hundred weights of phosphates flow annually into 

 the sea with the Thames, and with other of the British rivers. 



Thousands of hundred-weights of the same materials, arising 

 from the sea, annually flow back again into that land in the form 

 of guano. 



In the alchemistical era, the imperfect knowledge of the pro- 

 perties of matter gave rise to the supposition, that metals, such s 

 gold, could be developed by seeds. Crystalline forms, and the 

 ramifications which they assume, appeared to alchemists to be the 

 leaves and branches of metallic plants, and their great endeavors 

 were to find an earth fitted for the peculiar growth and develop- 

 ment of their seeds. Without there being any apparent nourish- 

 ment given to a seed, it was seen to grow to a plant, which put forth 

 blossoms and seeds. This led to the belief, that could the seeds 

 of metals be procured, similar hopes of their reaching maturity 

 might be entertained. 



Such ideas could only belong to a time when scarcely anything 

 was known of the nature of the atmosphere, and when there was 

 not a conception of the part taken by the earth and air in the vital 

 processes of plants. 



The chemistry of the present day exhibits the elements of 

 water; it can even prepare this water with all its properties from 

 their elements ; but it cannot manufacture these elements — it can 

 only prepare them from water. The newly-formed water, which 

 has been artificially prepared, was water previously to the separa- 

 tion of its elements. 



Many of our farmers, like to these alchemists of old, in search- 

 ing after the philosopher's stone, look now to find the wonderful 

 seeds ; for they expect that their land should bear a hundred- 

 fold, without supplying to it any food, even although this land 

 is scarcely rich enough to bear the plants usually cultivated 

 on it ! 



The experience of centuries or of thousands of years is not 

 sufficient to protect them from the new fallacies which are con- 

 stantly arising ; the power of resisting the effects of credulity or 

 superstition can only be obtained from a knowledge of true scien- 

 tific principles. 



In the first stage of the philosophy of nature, it was supposed 



