THE PHILOSOPHY OF MANURING ORCHARDS. 455 



try who is not conversant with the economy and value of muck, 

 ashes, lime, marl, bones, and a number of less important fertilizers. 

 In all the older and less fertile parts of the country, where manure 

 is no longer cheap, the use of these fertilizers has enabled agricultu- 

 rists of limited means to keep their land in high condition, and add 

 thirty per cent, to their crops. And any one who will take the 

 trouble to examine into the matter in our principal cities, will find 

 that fifty articles, in the aggregate of enormous value for manure to 

 the farmer and gardener, which were until lately entirely thrown 

 away, are now preserved, are articles of commerce, and are all turned 

 to the utmost account as food for the crops. 



We have been led into this train of thought by observing that 

 after the great staples of the agriculturist bread-stuffs and the 

 grasses have had that first attention at the hands of the chemist 

 which they so eminently deserve, some investigation is now going 

 on for the benefit of the horticulturist and the orchardist, of which 

 it is our duty to keep our readers informed. We allude to the 

 analyses which have been made of the composition of the inorganic 

 parts of vegetables, and more especially of some of the fruit-trees 

 whose culture is becoming an object of so much importance to this 

 country. 



We think no one at all familiar with modern chemistry or sci- 

 entific agriculture, can for a moment deny the value of specific ma- 

 nures. It is the great platform upon which the scientific culture of 

 the present day stands, and which raises it so high above the old 

 empirical routine of the last century. But in order to be able to 

 make practical application, with any tolerable chance of success, of 

 the doctrine of special manures, we must have before us careful 

 analyses of the composition of the plants we propose to cultivate. 

 Science has proved to us that there are substances which are of 

 universal value as food for plants ; but it is now no less certain that, 

 as the composition of different plants, and even different species of 

 plants, diners very widely, so must certain substances, essential to 

 the growth of the plant, be present in the soil, or that growth is 

 feeble and imperfect. 



A little observation will satisfy any careful inquirer, that but 

 little is yet practically known of the proper mode of manuring 



