AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 431 



inorganic manure for wheat thus : to five pounds of silicate of 

 potash in solution, add five pounds of bone dust ; when dry, in- 

 corporate with it fifteen pounds of common Turks Island salt, and 

 thirteen pounds of plaster of paris. This composition produced 

 great results, not only in the yield of grain but plenty of the straw, 

 which was thicker than a pipe stem. I then added the following 

 year to the same compound, twenty pounds of wheat bran, and 

 ten pounds of the ash of wheat straw, and the production was 

 enormous. If land was so manured, eighty bushels of wheat 

 would result from an acre. I have grown by another process, at 

 the rate of seventy-nine and three quarter bushels of wheat to the 

 acre. 



When I think of the yearly destruction of orgauic matter upon 

 which farmers have always supposed vegetables almost entirely 

 depend for nutrition, and take into consideration that to supply 

 the consumption, there must have been twelve feet deep of organic 

 substance all over the earth, my surprise is great, and leads to 

 more dependence upon inorganic matter. To have fed the cattle 

 raised in France in the year 1845, the process of nutrition would 

 have required eighty millions of pounds of organic substances, at 

 least seven times more than the cattle contributed for its repro- 

 duction. I have lots on my farm from which I take three crops 

 in a season, five times more in amount than the organic matter I 

 return. And what is still more wonderful, each crop evaporates 

 during the process of growth, five millions of pounds of water ! 

 Who can fathom the .magnitude of God's processes 1 



Excess of moisture is the cause of fogs and damps, even ou 

 lands not evidently wet. Dampness, we all know, is the medium 

 through which decomposing substances are evolved, affecting the 

 almosphere injuriously, by aggravating impurities. 



The evaporation of surplus moisture likewise lowers tempera- 

 ture, produces chills and fevers, by creating rapid fluctuations 

 by which the health of the surrounding inhabitants are more or 

 less injured. Where there is a large accumulation of moisture 

 holding in solution animal or vegetable matter, the public health 

 must and does suffer. Evils thus arising are perceived in great 

 intensity in districts that lie low, in river valleys, particularly 

 those below high water mark. People even living in high dis- 

 tricts overlooking such illdrained low lands, are not unfrequently 

 afflicted with marsh fevers, wafted to their abodes by the winds. 



You have, no doubt, often observed when passing from a reten- 

 tive clay soil, to one of sand, or a porous nature, the difference 

 in temperature, the one cold and raw, the other warm. This 



