Agronome on Manure. 209 



Davy's works beside me ; Messrs. Johnston's works have been 

 sent me in a present from the salt-works ; but all are thrown 

 away upon a person in full practice. Every different soil requires 

 different treatment, and that for every different or distinct spe- 

 cies of vegetable. Mr. Johnston's mistake with me is a funda- 

 mental one; he says (Vol. III. p. 400.1, "Every substance 

 capable of increasing the fertility of the soil is a manure;" 

 whereas I think nothing is a manure which does not enrich 

 the land. I cannot think that the moving power and the regu- 

 lator of a machine are one and the same thing;. Mr. Johnston 

 may have seen land in England that was too poor to grow a 

 heavy crop of cabbage, and yet too rich to grow a crop of 

 wheat. On such soils, in wet seasons, the straw will be flaggy 

 and the grain shrivelled, as it would be on an old dunghill. Now, 

 what is the name of the substance which would harden such 

 straw, and make such grain plump ? I call it any thing except 

 a manure. Again, in making up composts for certain plants, 

 I frequently put in some of the soil which had grown cucum- 

 bers the previous year; this I call manuring: but were I to 

 reverse this practice, and put the decayed soil into my cucumber 

 bed, what should I then be doing ? Why, the very reverse of 

 manuring. Mr. Johnston then says, " Hence earths applied 

 as regulators are actually manures," &c. Herein I suppose I 

 am wrong again ; for when I dig or plough rather deeper than 

 usual, and thereby turn up some fresh soil, I may thereby in- 

 crease the fertility of the land, but cannot conscientiously say I 

 have manured it, at least my landlord would not believe me 

 if I did say so. Neither could I call it manuring if I had got the 

 said soil from a distance ; for it would be only adding earth 

 to earth, &c., as increasing the quantity may or may not im- 

 prove the quality. We read in the parables of "seed being 

 sown on stony ground," or stony places where there was " not 

 much earth," and even on a rock, where, of course, there was 

 no earth at all ; the result was the same ; it all died for lack of 

 food or moisture, or from having no root in itself, or from no 

 depth of earth. It is not said that for lack of manure the crop 

 perished ; and no doubt if the said rock had been covered with 

 a foot of the same poor soil in which it had sprung up so 

 quickly, the crop might have been fifty, sixty, or an hundred 

 fold. The royal Psalmist speaks of corn on house-tops 

 perishing, I suppose he meant in the gutters of old rotten 



has done in the arts of manufacture. Before this can take place, however, 

 young gardeners must not merely have Sir Humphrey Davy's work " beside" 

 them. — Cond. 



Vol. IV. — No. 15. p 



