236 THE SYSTEM OF FARM-YARD MANURING. 



urgent request for the improvement of their condition 

 to lay before the magistrates, than a petition to be al- 

 lowed to collect < forestings,' that is, to carry off the 

 natural manure from the forests for the benefit of their 

 fields. They urged that without this (very pitiful) ad- 

 dition to their manure, the future prospects of agricul- 

 ture in the Palatinate were endangered. In fact, a 

 great quantity of manure is laid out upon the vineyards 

 and tobacco fields, which give none in return ; hence 

 the increasing want. 



There can be no doubt that in the earliest periods 

 most of our cultivated fields gave a succession of abun- 

 dant crops, without manuring, as in the case even now, 

 with many fields in the United States of America. But 

 no fact has ever yet been more clearly established by 

 experience than this, that in the course of a few genera- 

 tions all such fields are found perfectly unsuited for the 

 growth of wheat, tobacco, and cotton, and that they re- 

 cover their fertility only by manuring. 



I know full well that recorded facts have as little 

 weight with ignorant c practical men' as those of politi- 

 cal history with practical statesmen, who also act ac- 

 cording to ' circumstances and contingencies,' and are 

 simply led when they fondly believe they lead. Still, 

 the reflecting mind cannot fail to be struck by the cir- 

 cumstance, that it is just in countries where the land is 

 most positively known to have given for above 4000 

 years, without manuring by the hand of man, an unin- 

 terrupted succession of abundant crops, that the full 

 action of the great law of restitution is most clearly, 

 seen. 



We know, most positively, that the corn-fields in 

 the valley of the Nile and the basin of the Ganges re- 

 main permanently fruitful, simply because nature has 

 taken upon herself to restore the lost condition of pro- 

 ductiveness to the soil in the mud deposited by the 

 inundation of these, rivers which gradually raises the 

 land. 



All the fields that are not reached by the river lose 

 their productiveness unless manured. In Egypt, the 



