PROCEEDINGS OF THE FARMERS' CLUB. 451 



and in this way succeeded in greatly increasing his results during 

 the season. Mr. Mechi has been talked about as every man will 

 be, who attempts to do things in a radically different way from 

 others ; but I have read his balance sheets, and looked over his 

 accounts carefully for a number of years. He has been a great 

 benefactor to his country. Although, if he had to pay the rates 

 that we pay for labor here, he would make no money, still he 

 would save himself, and that would be a great deal better than 

 many of his neighbors do upon similar farms. 



The Chinese understand all these matters, for there they waste 

 nothing of the manurial kind. We can get some hints con- 

 cerning the results of irrigation, from the inundation of the Nile. 

 It is stated that the amount of matter carried into the Atlantic 

 ocean, from the Gulf of Mexico, in a day, is equal to the avail- 

 able soil of a county. The Gulf stream is rendered turbid by it. 

 There is a headland below New Orleans, that within my memory, 

 Capt. Bradish and Johnson, two Balise pilots, have sailed over. 

 And they have been rendered immensely wealthy by the deposit 

 of those splendid estates known as the Woodland estates. They 

 use no fertilizing material ; but every thing they raise is of a su- 

 perior quality. If you examine their soil, you will find that it is 

 composed of the inorganic matter that has passed down the tri- 

 butaries of the Mississippi, the lime from every tree that has de- 

 cayed, the potash, and all the inorganic matter resulting from the 

 decay of organisms. Treat the soil with dilute acetic acid, boil 

 it for twenty minutes, and you will get eighteen times as much 

 inorganic matter required for vegetation, as in the best garden 

 soils. It is the result of the trituration and decay of vegetation. 

 This is what is swept into the ocean ; but it is not lost. It is 

 taken up by fish, shell-fish, and birds, whose dung forms guano^ 

 and brings it back to us in a still more progressed condition for 

 human use. If it were not so, the surface of the globe would 

 have long since become barren. 



Mr. Carpenter — Why does land sometimes become barren from 

 repeated applications of barnyard manure ? 



Prof. Mapes — I have known soils to get into a state incapable 

 of carrying on chemical action, in which the process of " ferment" 

 is absent ; gardeners who, commencing with the use of 200 lbs. 

 of guano to the acre, now use 1200 lbs.; not that they require all 

 that as food for plants, but because the property of ferment in 

 guano is small. Barnyard manure becomes much more valuable 



