72 CHRONICLES OF A CLAY FARM. 



rapid development of the leaves will soon obtain suffi- 

 cient carbon from the air. The labours of the Dung- 

 cart, as at present carried on, even in the most im- 

 proved districts awkward and uneconomical, exhibit 

 under more backward management, a system of ela- 

 borate extravagance and loss, which the least chemical 

 acquaintance with what we are about, would render 

 utterly intolerable. By frequent turnings in the yard, 

 and long exposure in the field, every opportunity for 

 the escape of the Ammonia and every toil in the 

 lifting, hauling, forking, and ploughing-in of the Car- 

 bon is lavishly expended. And all "free gratis for 

 nothing," if plants imbibe little carbon at that end. 

 What portion the roots do take up, has to be oxy- 

 genated in the leaf and decomposed again before plants 

 will re-assimilate it : a subsidiary faculty which boun- 

 tiful Nature has given them, with different degrees of. 

 necessity in making use of it. 



But it is otherwise in autumn and winter manuring. 

 Decay is only slow combustion: and when you are 

 burying great cart-loads of carbonaceous manure in 

 the soil before winter, you are making a hotbed un- 

 der-ground, which will raise the temperature of the 

 soil throughout the long reign of Jack Frost, and 

 preserve many a tender seed that would otherwise 



