No. 144.J 45& 



as 13,765 pounds of the urine of horses. Four pounds of gypsum 

 will increase the produce of a meadow at least one hundred 

 pounds when first applied. Gypsum requires much water to de- 

 compose it, say two parts to 800 parts of water. One coat of this 

 BUbstance lasts three or four years. Water, ammonia, and car- 

 bonic acid, says Liebig, contain the elements necessary for the 

 support of vegetables and animals. The same substances are the 

 ultimate products of the chemical processes of decay and putre- 

 faction. All the innumerable products of vitality resume, after 

 death, the original form from which they sprung; and thus, 

 death the complete dissolution of a generation, becomes the source 

 of life for a new one. 



Plants contain alkaline bases, such as lime, magnesia, soda, 

 potash, etc.; if any one of them exists in large quantity, the others 

 are diminished ; these bases are connected with the development 

 of plants, as we find when they are deficient, the growth is much 

 impeded, and when absent, it stops altogether. I have, before 

 now, been astonished to find sea planis several hundred milea 

 from the sea, growing in the vicinity of salt works, which plainly 

 shows that our whole earth contains all varieties of seeds, spread 

 by the winds of Heaven, and by birds, which remain in a dormant 

 gtate, until they find the conditions essential to their growth. B 

 is the same with fish eggs, which are carried by birds, and when 

 deposited in pools where the conditions necessary for their devel- 

 opment are found, they hatch and breed. At Nidda, a village in 

 Hesse Darmstadt, multitudes of small fish are found in the salt 

 pans, whereas in the pans at Neuheim, eighteen miles distant, 

 they have never been seen ; the reason is that the waters of Neu- 

 heim contain carbonic acid and lime. 



The amount of food that plants take from the atmosphere in 

 the shape of carbonic acid gas and ammonia, is small ; they can- 

 not take more than the air contains. If, therefore, the number 

 of their stems and branches h^ve been increased by the excess of 

 food yielded by the soil at the beginning of their development, 

 they will require more nourishment to form their blossoms and 

 fruit, than the air can furnish them, and will, therefore, not come 

 to maturity ; by pruning, when this is the case, we prevent the 



