PROCEEDINGS OF THE FARMERS CLUB. 00 y 



For ordinary crops, there is no doubt but that sewag-e in its usual state is 

 the most valuable of all manures. 



The effects of liquid manures, wlien applied to the roots of vines, and to 

 melons, are very apparent; the leaves immediately assume a rich deep 

 green, become double the usual size, and produce quickly matured fruit, 

 because the thin liquid is at once appropriated to use without loss, whereas 

 that spread on the surface or dug into the ground is dependent on many 

 subsequent circumstances before plants can derive any benefit from its 

 application. Many of its most valuable properties are dissipated during 

 the necessary preparation. 



John Mitchell, Lord Ellesmere's gardener, states that he has never seen 

 aTiy manure produce so good a crop of berries as the liquid. Solid manure, 

 he says, often causes a crop of strawl)erries to be lost, by fcjrcing the 

 grow^th of leaves. He applies the liquid just when the plants are forming 

 their flower buds, and the strength of the manure is spent in producing 

 fruit instead of leaves. When the plants \vere bearing, it could be seen to 

 a plant how far the irrigation had extended. Of course, liquid manure 

 may be misapplied in wet weather, and is subject to the casualties of 

 storms, but less so than top-dressings of solid manure — thus saving time 

 and diminishing risk. But whilst the effects of liquid manures are imme- 

 diate on vegetation, they have been found in practice not to be transient in 

 the soil, as it was supposed they would be. Professor Liebig says: "The 

 reason why in certain years the influence of the best and most plentiful 

 manuring is scarcely perceptible, is that, during the moist and varying 

 springs and summers, the phosphates "and other salts with alkaline bases, 

 as also the soluble ammoniacal salts, are entirely or partly removed." A 

 great amount of rain and moisture removes, in the greatest quantity, the 

 very substances which are most indispensible to the plants at the time 

 they begin to form and mature their seeds. 



Intelligent farmers must give to the soil the enriching substances in 

 such a state as to render possible their favorable action on plants during 

 the whole season of their growth. Art must reduce the solubility of mar 

 nuring matters to a certain limit, calculated to bring the plants into the 

 same state in which they exist in a virgin soil. Agriculture should be 

 placed on as sure principles aa well conducted factories, so that it can be 

 carried on with perfect security, and instead of looking forward to the re- 

 sults of our labors with doubt, our minds should be filled with confidence 

 and patience. 



Plants are best supplied with nourishment by watering them at short in- 

 tervals, during their entire growth, with weak liquids composed of the ele. 

 ments which form their structure. It is established by the results of ac- 

 tual experience, that drained land upon which liquid manures are applied, 

 the fertilizing matters do not escape througli the soil, but arc retained by 

 it chemically, maintaining its increased fertility from season to season, 

 tliough completely waslied by every heavj' rain that falls. Whereas, ma- 

 nures that are applied by top dressings in the solid form, are washed by 

 heavy showers into the ditches and drains, as may be witnessed at their 

 outfalls, by the turbid matter which they discharge. Where there are two 

 outfalls from contiguous portions of the same field, the one from laud tliat 



