•ilC (Assembly 



dental quantity of animooia, and " that it ought not to take any 

 higher rank, as regards organic manure, than many other substan- 

 ces accidentally mixed in remote quantities with the atmosphere." 

 But then the question naturally enough arises, is not this one of 

 the compounds, which being accidentally mixed with the air of 

 the atmosphere, nature ha? provided to restore to worn out soils 

 t^e elements of which cropping has deprived them. Now, wheth- 

 er the amount in the atmosphere be great or small — and it will 

 be doubtless varying as to the dry or wet condition of the atmos- 

 phere — there is no doubt but it is there, and from thence is 

 supplied to plants by the soil which has shown such very decided 

 tendencies to absorb it. Now it is not at all material whether it 

 is formed from the nitrogen of the atmosphere, combining with 

 the hydrogen of water, or whether it is derived from the decom- 

 position of nitrogenous substances, so that it really comes there, 

 and that it is also contained in the water of our brooks and riv- 

 ers, and so in a greater or leijs degree is applied to plants. 



• Carbon, again, of which, as we shall show hereafter, so much 

 is abstracted from the soil, is supplied from the atmosphere, where 

 it exists as an integral part of the air we respire, and which our 

 respiration, combustion and decomposition are constantly sup- 

 plying, and also from the water of our rains and snows, which 

 brings it down with it to the earth. Hydrogen can easily be sup- 

 plied from the water of springs and from rain as well as from va- 

 por. Then again, even sulphur, which is liberated by combus- 

 tion as sulphurous acid gas, will be condensed by vapor and de- 

 scend to the earth," or will escape in the shape of sulphuretted 

 hydrogen from decay of vegetable matter, and will be liberated 

 doubtless by the earthquakes and tha volcanic actions of the 

 Mounts ^tna, Vesuvius and Hecia to afford a never failing sup- 

 ply. It will also be carried as dissolved sulphurets in the water 

 of springs. 



Ohlorine will be supplied by the tennpests, which drive the sea 

 spray tor miles across the country*, and which thus afford a sup- 

 ply of the minerals v>h%ck mcy last a gejxeration. Phosphorus, also, 



•During t)>e great Btorm from the BOutb-rCft rn .Temiary, 1S39, tfco Bait spray from U>ewc8t 

 lOftSt formed a BuHrAi incrcstatfeD uk tfc« frhodcns at A.laltt>c« Kvu^g acrops tbe wbole ia]'^d. 



