208 Agronome on Manure. 



Art. V. On Manure, Sfc. By Agronome. 



Dear Sir, 

 I PERCEIVE that I have got a grand top-dressing with salt by 

 Mr. Johnston ; and however green I may appear in his eyes, I 

 wish never to look black on account of it ; but I acknowledge 

 that a b7'ow?i study came over me, when I saw how deliberately 

 he had perverted my language, and endeavoured to make it 

 appear that I had contradicted myself. Pray, Mr. Conductor, 

 pray, gentle Reader, did you observe that I had contradicted 

 myself before you were informed of it by Mr. JohnstonJ? If you 

 have, you are more sharp-sighted than I; but it cannot be 

 expected that every one should have an eye like Mr. Johnston, 

 who can pry into futurity, and prophesy that I will contradict 

 myself further in my next. Well, so be it : it is by trying 

 both sides of a question that the truth is discovered ; and if I 

 am mistaken only in the meaning of the word manure, I stand 

 convicted and corrected. I have neither language nor learning 

 to contend with the learned ; but, like most practical gardeners 

 of my age, I boast of a certain sort of instinct, by which we 

 know, the moment we see a plant, how to propagate it, and 

 when we have grown it, we know how to make it flower bril- 

 liantly, or fruit abundantly, and how to increase or diminish 

 the flavour of the common fruits. Some possess this know- 

 ledge only generally, others more particularly ; hence the 

 great victory obtained at flower-shows and gooseberry-shows, 

 by florists and others, over the common gardener. A know- 

 ledge of chemistry may certainly assist amateurs in such pur- 

 suits, but if the working gardener has studied botany well, 

 and is obliged to carry the names of ten thousand plants in 

 his head, I think it a pity to stuff* such a head with the jargon 

 of chemists. * I have read Lavoisier ; I have Sir Humphrey 



* Because there have been good gardeners or farmers who knew nothing 

 of chemistry, it does not follow that a knowledge of chemistry may not 

 render the best of these still better cultivators. If this knowledge only 

 enabled them sooner to attain those results which they now gain by expe- 

 rience, it would be of great use : but it not only enables them to attain 

 those results sooner, but, as Mr. Johnston has shown in the preceding 

 paper, to apply their experience on fixed principles. To the cultivator, 

 therefore, a knowledge of chemistry is next in importance to that of vege- 

 table physiology. We are willing to excuse a little want of courtesy in a 

 correspondent of strong sense like Agronome, (and we know Mr. Johnston 

 too well to suppose he will take offence on this occasion,) but we cannot 

 allow Agronome to state anything that might, even by possibility, lessen the 

 efforts of the young gardener to acquire a knowledge of a science which, if 

 it were once as well known among gardeners as physiology is among some 

 of them, would effect as great improvements in the arts of cultivation as it 



