354 
WATOLA 
[ Fed. 3, 1870 
thereon for the past twenty years, it has produced surprising 
results. Having established his propositions single-handed, 
and at his own cost, a portion of the imperial domain at | 
Vincennes was allotted to him, as an experimental farm, 
and the crops he there produced, the Coxjérences Agricoles | 
he there held among the crops, together with his numerous 
Comparative size of wheatsheaf produced from soil completely manured. 
published works, and the effect of his lectures, have made 
such an impression, that his method of cultivation has 
been adopted at more than five hundred places in France ; 
while from Spain, Portugal, Italy, Belgium, and Germany, 
and from the French colonies, farmers and cultivators 
have resorted to Paris and to the experimental farm at 
Vincennes, to acquaint themselves with the method which 
under ordinary circumstances would more than double 
their harvest. 
Prof. Ville’s method of instruction is as simple and 
definite as his method of fertilisation, as if he had in view 
the large number of small peasant proprietors in France, 
and wrote and lectured for their especial benefit. You 
may sow wheat, he says, in soil wanting nitrogenised 
matter, phosphates, potash, and lime, and it will grow 
and bear grain, but the stalk will be very short, thin, and 
weak, and the vegetation precarious. Mix with the soil 
a substance composed of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, 
the result will be exactly the same. And why? Because 
plants take all the carbon they need from the carbonic 
acid of the atmosphere, and hydrogen and oxygen from 
water. Hence, to add these three elements to the soil is 
useless ; on the other hand, if some substance containing 
assimilable nitrogen be added, a salutary effect is at once 
produced, for plants derive nitrogen partly from the soil, 
partly from the air. But this effect is as nothing compared 
with that of manures affording certain mineral elements : 
mix these as well as the nitrogenised matter with calcined 
earth, and its fertility will equal that of the richest soil. 
The vegetation, no longer thin and starved, acquires vigour 
and activity, the plant grows straight and strong, is of a 
rich green colour, and produces a well-formed ear filled 
with large and heavy grain. 
Comparative size of wheatsheaf produced from soil without manure. 
Many of the mineral elements required by the plant 
already exist in the soil; consequently, to render it 
productive the farmer has to discover which of the 
fertilising elements are wanting, and apply them to his 
field. To do this, it is not necessary that he should be 
an analytical chemist: the vegetation of his fields will do 
it for him. He has only to sow or plant a small experi- 
