PROCEEDINGS OP THE FARMERS' CLUB. 151 



be filled and replaced by the one that has returned empty. It should, by 

 all means, be spread at once, as it can never be done at any other time so 

 cheaply, a man may follow the carts and break up the lumps. But if it is 

 determined to lay the manure in heaps the followers should spread it imme- 

 diately, so that it may assist plants at the commencement of the develop- 

 ment of their germs and first radicle fibres. The graminro, Icguminosas, 

 umbellifercB, cruciferee, cichoracere, cucurbitacere and coniferas, emit acetic 

 acid during germination, and much more just as the plant leaf breaks 

 through the soil and bursts from the bud, than at any other period of its 

 existence, therefore the manures at this time will be of tlic most service. 

 Still plants require quantities of the component parts of manures in differ- 

 ent stages of their development, thus rye yielded 78-IO0Oth3 of ashes five 

 weeks before blossoming, 53-lOOOths at the time it was in bloom and" 

 32-lOOOths when the seeds were ripe, consequently it v/oukl appear that 

 rye, from the period of its blossoming, restores a portion of its organic 

 constituents to the earth, though the phosphates remain in the rye. The 

 soil receives again from living plants the carbonaceous matter it thus 

 loses, so that certain proportions in it do not decrease. 



When the ancients inquired by laborious and tedious researches into the 

 nature of vegetable growth, the results were unsatisfactory to them. Epicu- 

 rus, Lucretius, Anaximenes and Pythagoras imagined that the air cliano-ed 

 into other substances, and they again into air, and that this process went 

 on with a never ending rotation. Tull imagined that the earth supplied the 

 whole nourishment to vegetation. Ingenhousz among the moderns contended 

 for air. Hassenfratz, that carbon was the chief food of plants, and that it 

 was derived from the soil by the roots. Lanssure, that plants obtain their 

 earths from the soil. Schroeder, that the earth was derived from vegeta- 

 tion. Grobert mixed four earths, alumina, lime, magnesia and silica, in 

 proper proportions to constitute a rich fertile soil, and supplied the plants 

 which he placed in it with water, but they did not make a particle of 

 growtli until he supplied them witli a liquid from tlic barn-yard. Lampa- 

 dius planted vegetables in one pure earth and supplied them witii barn- 

 yard water; they not only grew, but contained by analysis the usual 

 earthy matters, notwithstanding the entire absence of any of them in the 

 soil. Four earths have been found in plants, all the alkalies in the lluid of 

 anin»als, iron in blood and manganese in hair. None of the earths beino- 

 simple substances ; animals possess the power of forming them durino- the 

 process of digestion by many unknown combinations and agencies. I 

 once restricted several animals to one kind of food, apples, and the "Towth 

 of the solid parts of their bodies and the necessary secretions of the fluids 

 went on uninterruptedly, and the animals grew large and fattened. There 

 is no doubt but that charcoal is the only positively fixed ino-redient in 

 plants, and notwithstanding it appears to be of great advanta^-c to them 

 when placed around the roots, I am perfectly convinced that it is never 

 elaborated by the plant in that form, as liquids and gases only enter into 

 the combinations in plants. Elastic matters in plants are generated by 

 processes entirely beyond the comprehension of man. And even when we 

 apply solid manures from the compost heap, we have not the most distant 



