17 



l >i.| 



THE AGRICULTURAL GAZETTE. 





267 



*IT h* doe« for in* own wui/ ^". The pleasures ul 

 ^IThoBie naturally console him for the labours of a 

 i-!!r dar and the joys of a cheerful fireside commit 

 ZTmrta and toils of life to a drowsy forgetfulness. 

 Stheotber hand, the sight of misery, after a hard 

 w« fcM de uaow e a the spirits, and impresses the idea, 

 Jw t do what he will, the labourer must be comfortless. 

 o often drives him to the beer-shop, where the 



mcial exhiiaratr.ni leaves omy a grea wi uc^uuucuu; . 



Siwfcen be sees the intention of making him comfort 



hie evinced in the erection of a convenient dwelling, 



JTLil immediately add to it his own industry, as far as 



i if able, and will avail himself of the means that 



in-offered of making himself more respectable by his 



!„ -exertions. The beginning has only to be made : 



f our observations shall in any way lead to the very 



fetirabie consummation, the labour will be cheerfully 



rendered. /. ^>- 



ON THE TULLIAN SYSTEM OF CULTIVATION. 



No. II.— Satisfactorily assured, from repeated expe- 

 riments, tliat the grain crop in rows, at sufficient dis- 

 tances to admit of working the ground through the whole 

 pifiod of its growth, will be more productive than if 

 MB in any other way ;— convinced that it is as capable 

 of becoming a fallow crop as any green crop, and that 

 it will be found as superior to the broadcast crop as the 

 Turnip has been proved to be ; and decidedly of opinion 

 that an increased fertility of the soil will be a certain 

 iimrqTiriirr of a continuous fallowing, — I was right well 

 pH-vi to find the able pen of Mr. Kawstorne again 

 employed in recommending the practice of Tull. lie 

 will I feel assured, be pleased to find that he does not 

 stand alone, although sustained by one so little worthy 

 of being hie comrade^ and that an old soldier in the 



is again in the field ; and not on the broad sheet 

 alone, but on the still broader bosom of our mother 

 earth, and on a scale, though humble, yet sufficient to 

 prove the principle. As pertinent to my purpose, and 

 his observations may have escaped from the memory 

 Qf the older, and may not have been seen by the later 

 readers of the Agricultural Gazette, I will take leave to 

 jive two extracts from a notice of this system by Mr. 

 wstorne, in the Agricultural Gazette of the 10th of 

 March, 1849; he says, referring to the "New Hus- 

 bandry : " 



u Mr. Evelyn tells us that, take of the most barren 

 earth you can find, pulverise it well, and expose it 

 abroad for a year, incessantly agitated (that is, stirred 

 often), it will become so fertile as to receive an exotic 

 plant from the furthest Indies, and to cause all vege- 

 tables to prosper in the most exalted degree, and to 

 bear their fruit as kindly with us as in their natural 

 climates." And he asks, " What effect did Mr. Tull 

 produce by this stirring of the land ? Merely this, that 

 be grew on the same land in succession, for 12 years, 

 excellent crops of Wheat, without an atom of manure." 

 Listen to this, ye farmers of limited capitals, and learn 

 how to meet a fallen market and drive the foreign 

 corn-grower from our coasts. But you will not credit it; 

 you will not believe chemists that, in admitting the atmo- 

 spheric air to your soils, and which can only be done by 

 keeping them open to receive it, the organic matters 

 floating in the atmosphere enter it, and are laid hold of 

 by the clayey particles of the soil, and retained by 

 them until, by superior attraction, or by some other 

 more powerful property of vegetable life, they are 

 deprived of it by your growing plants, while this same 

 admission of air at the same time disengages and renders 

 ■oluble the inorganic matters which have been shut up 

 *n bonds of iron since the creation, that the whole act 

 together to supply your crops with the elements of their 

 formation. You may not credit the chemist, but you 

 most have confidence in your own practice ; you know 

 that in diligently fallowing, by repeatedly stirring for i 

 twelve months, a clay soil, you render it capable cf ' 

 doing what it would not have done before, of producing 

 » good crop of Wheat. This has been done to get rid 

 of weeds, no doubt a necessary object, and it has long 

 been thought that this was the only object it accom- 

 plished ; and 1 have known some of our older writers 

 express astonishment that such fertility should 



Liebig, 



fertility should be 

 by turning such minute vegetable matters into 

 the ground. We now know better, and ascribe not the 

 fertility to the weeds, but to a never failing and abun- 

 dant source of fertility, the atmospheric air, with what 

 it holds suspended in it. If then, by allowing a free 

 inflow of atmospheric air for one twelve months, we 

 induce a fertility that gives us a crop where we would 

 aot else have had it, why should not the same means 

 employed a second year give us a second crop, and so 

 on m succeeding years, till we had exhausted the whole 

 01 the inorganic matters of the soil within reach of our 

 j¥*des or ploughs ; and Liebig says, thousands of years 

 "*ve been required to break down 



the soil, and 



to exhaust its 



And he adds, " A single cubic foot of felspar 



thousands of years will be required 

 alkalies. 



26 ?|* cient t0 supply a wood, covering a surface of 

 <V10 square feet, with the potash required for five 

 * e *rs. But can they ever be exhausted % they must 

 jaatmue to exist in the earth, in the air, or in the 



«er, for they cannot be annihilated. According to 



^ebig, those that have become soluble will be exhausted 



y injudicious cropping, and the land rendered sterile ; 



*« by a year's fallowing, that is, the land placed in a 



yourable position, by continual exposure to the atmo- 

 ■P«ere, to be acted upon by its air with the matters it 

 witains, it has its crude alkalies rendered soluble and 



£^j!i em Up m sufficient quantities for a crop: he 

 J 8 * The fallow time, as we have already shown, is 





that period of cuhure during which. land is exposed to 

 a progressive disintegration by means of the influence 

 of the atmosphere, for the purpose of rendering a 

 certain quantity of alkalies capable of being appropriated 

 by plants." 



We can attribute the neglect of fallowing, which Mr. 

 Rawstorne complains of, to nothing but the want of a 

 due appreciation of its effects, and to an ignorance of its 

 manner of operation ; in pressing on the agricultural 

 world then the importance of a continual fallow, 1 must 

 endeavour to show its modus operandi, although I am 

 aware in doing so that many of the readers of this Paper 

 are better acquainted with the subject than I am, but 

 they may pass it over. I write for those who are not. 



Whatever may be the age of this world we inhabit, it 

 is unquestionable that before the time of the creation 

 of the present races the earth had taken on much of its 

 present appearance, that the fertile lands had been 

 formed by the gradual mouldering down of rocks. We 

 cannot doubt this, for we see the same operations of 

 Nature going on before our eyes every day ; naked 

 rocks rise from their ocean bed, naked as the new-born 

 babe, hard, and apparently impenetrable, but by the 

 varying actions of the air, of the rain, of heat and of 

 cold, their indurated surfaces soften, scale off, and 

 moulder down ; washed by the falling rain and their 

 own gravity, they sink into the hollows, and vegetation 

 commences ; by the same actions continuing on the fresh 

 exposed surfaces, in conjunction with, and aided by, the 

 decaying vegetables, the quantity and depth of soil in 

 these hollows is increased ; the lofty trees now tower in 

 their height* and the bare and naked rock has become 

 an isle of beauty fit for the residence of man. The same 

 effects of the same causes are to be seen in the crumbling 

 ruins of a feudal age. Time walks triumphant, with his [ 

 all-subduing agencies, over the finest forms of sculptured 

 art ; their fair proportions still remain, but they are all 

 that do remain, their sharp outlines are all rounded off, 

 their whole form deeply corroded, roughed, and pitted 

 by those atmospheric influences which Heaven has given 

 to man, that by his labour he may enable them to operate 

 in that soil which is to give him his daily bread. Yield- 

 ing to such all-powerful agencies, rocks and stones split 

 asunder, surface after surface scale off and give up the 

 substances, the alkalies, the oxides, they held imprisoned 

 u as fast bound in iron," that are required for the sup- 

 port and very being of vegetable life. That these sub- 

 stances are so necessary is justly inferred by their beini: 

 found in all vegetables, in the parts of them that are 

 not volatilised by the action of fire ; that is, they are 

 found in their ashes. 



This slow process of Nature formed, then, our arable 

 lands, as in the words of the celebrated 

 " Thousands of years have been necessary to convert 

 stones and rocks into the soil of arable land, and 

 thousands of years more will be requisite for their perfect 

 reduction ; that is, for the complete exhaustion of their 

 alkalies." This natural process the farmers of Ireland, 

 of Italy, and of other countries, avail themselves of, 

 though in utter ignorance of its laws, to restore fertility 

 to their soils by leaving them for some years in un- 

 worked fallow, or, as it is significantly called in Ireland, 

 u waste." " The fallow time," adds the same authority 

 (I again quote the passage, for it is one to be recalled), 

 "is that period of culture during which the land is 

 exposed to a progressive disintegration, by means of the 

 influence of the atmosphere, for the purpose of rendering 

 a certain quantity of alkalies capable of being appro- 

 priated by plants. Now it is evident that the careful 

 tilling of fallow land must increase and accelerate this 



disintegration." 



A very powerful agent in this disintegration appears 

 to be carbonie acid. " The interesting experiments of 

 Starve," observes the same great Liebig, " have proved 

 that water impregnated with carbonic acid decomposes 

 rocks which contain alkalies, and then dissolves a 

 part of the alkaline carbonates." Now as the substances , 

 which constitute the principal mass of every vegetable 

 are compounds of carbon, it follows that carbon makes 

 up a very large part of the matters we give to the soil 

 as manures, and it is evident, that by fitting the soil 

 to receive the carbon of the air, we may dimmish the 

 mass we give to the soil in the form of manure. 



But the beneficial effects of working a fallow are not 

 limited to inorganic nature, they extend to the decaying j 

 animal and vegetable matters we have deposited in the 

 soil, as manures, to increase its productiveness ; by ex- 

 posing these matters to the same natural actions to 

 which the alkalies of the soil are thus submitted, they 

 are thus more minutely divided, and more intimately 

 brought into contact with these alkalies. Various com- 

 pounds are thus rapidly formed in a fit state to be 

 taken up by plants, and an immense and incalculable 

 fertility is induced in the soil. 



We know that these atmospheric influences are 

 necessary for the decay of our manures; for when they 

 are excluded from our dung-heaps, by these latter being 

 closely packed and tramped, they do not ferment, but 

 the matters of which they are composed remain in the 

 same state in which they were heaped together ; so in 

 a great measure do they remain in an unmoved soil. 

 "In a soil," says Liebig,'* in which the air has no access, 

 or at most but very little, the remains of animals and 

 vegetables do not decay, for they can only do so when 

 freely supplied with oxygen, but they undergo putre- 

 faction, for which air is present in sufficient quantity. . 

 . . . The frequent renewal of air by ploughing, and the 

 preparation of the soil, especially its contact with alkaline 

 metallic oxides, the ashes of brown coal, burnt lime, or 

 limestone, change the putrefaction of its organic | 



(animal and vegetable) constituents into a pure process 



of oxidation ; and from the moment at which all the 

 organic matter existing in a soil enters into a state of 

 oxidation or decay, its fertility is increased." 



Now animal and vegetable bodies in a state of putre* 

 faction are not in a state to afford nutrition to plants J 

 on the contrary they are injurious, their strong at* 

 traction for oxygen, which they require to enable them 

 to enter into a state of decay, " depriving everything ia 

 contact with them, even the roots and plants them- 

 selves," of a portion of their oxygen. It is not, indeed, 

 till, by a free admission of air, they have been enabledj 

 by the absorption of its oxygen, to enter into decay, that 



they are able to give out nutritious compounds ta 

 plants. 



I have thus found salt, in a dry season, deprive tht 

 soil of the little moisture in it, so as to prevent the 

 vegetation of Barley for several weeks^ until rain fell*; 

 whereas where the salt was not used, the Barley came 

 up in reasonable time. 



It has been objected to fallowing, that the frequent 

 stirring of the ground assists and promotes the escapa 

 of much nutritious matter, in the form of gases, from the 

 soil ; and that great chemist, Sir Humphry Davy, was of 

 this opinion ; but since the discovery of Way, that the 

 aluminous particles of the soil have so strong an affinity 

 to ammonia that water will not wash it from them until 

 they are saturated, this objection is in a great measure 

 removed; yet admitting that there be an escape of 

 nutritious gases from the soil in fallowing, yet it would 

 not exist in the case of a cropped fallow, for the growing 

 plants would take up by their leaves probably all those 

 matters which escape from the soil in gases, and for 

 which purpose Nature has evidently furnished them 

 with the orifices on their lower sides ; and, again, sup- 

 posing there to be a loss in naked fallows, it furnishes 

 us with a still stronger proof in favour of fallowing, aa 

 evidence of its powerful effects in bringing into action 

 the inherent nutritious powers of the soil ; for if the 

 land can afford to sustain this loss, and yet, after a 

 year's fallowing and exposure, is made to produce a 

 crop which it would not have done before, how great 

 must be the fertility called forth by this operation* 

 J. M. Goodiff, Granard, Feb. 8. 



Home Correspondence. 



The Guano Trade. — The great importance 5 of guano to 

 the interests of British agriculture induces me to ask a 

 little space for a remark or two on your Leader of the 

 19th inst. You mention some errors which had h 



fallen into by a previous correspondent^ for the purp 

 of throwing discredit on his statement, and which, aa I 

 quite agree with him in the spirit of that statement, I 

 will shortly explain before proceeding further. First, 

 you say he erroneously states the price at 10/. a ton, the 

 importers' price being really 91. 5s. Very few farmers* 

 indeed, can take the guano at the importers' price, 

 they do not Bell in quantities less than ?>0 tons ; and as, 

 in almost all cases, it must be either reshipped or sent by 

 land into the interior of the country, it very seldom costs 

 the farmer at his own place less than 10L a ton. Nextj 

 you say he is " wrong again " in naming Messrs. GibbSj 

 Bright, and Co. as the importers, Messrs. Antony Gibbs 

 and Sons being the sole importers. Surely, this is 

 a very venial error, Messrs. Gibbs, Bright, and Co. 

 being, in so far as the public are concerned, the Liver- 

 pool branch of Messrs. Antony Gibbs and Sons, of Lon- 

 don, and the importers into Liverpool, and wholesale 

 agents for the article. On these two points, therefore, 

 your correspondent has not greatly misled your readers* 

 Another, which he does not seem to have urged, and 

 which admits of no dispute, is this, that whereas guano 

 is now being brought from the guano islands at about 

 31. a ton of freight, which last year cost 4i., and previous 

 to that 5l. y it is quite clear that, whatever the farmer 

 can afford to pay for it, the importers can afford to sell 

 it from \L to 21. a ton cheaper, with the same margin 

 as formerly for the Peruvian Government. If they 

 could afford to sell it at 91. 5s. when they paid 5/. a ton 

 for freight, they can equally afford to sell it at 7£. 5s* 

 when they pay only Zl. It is needless to tell us 

 about payment to English bondholders, shipping charges, 

 commissions, &c. These were all paid before, and 

 the fall in the rates of freight is clear profit to 

 the Peruvian Government or the importers,- if they 

 decline to share it with their customers. Now, if tins 

 was an open trade, I agree with you, that the im- 

 porters are entitled to sell the article at the highest 

 price they can obtain for it, and take all the usual 

 fair advantages that the current of events may favour 

 them with. But as it is a monopoly, we are 





titled to inquire whether, when the privilege becomes 

 greatly abused, it is not possible to adopt a remedy. 

 The discovery of Ichaboe caused an instant fall in the 

 price of Peruvian guano of one-half. We know that 

 the guano islands of Peru are nearly inexhaustible, and 

 there can be no doubt that the discovery of another 

 source of supply would at once defeat this monopoly. 

 But the farmers of England, who have so important an 

 interest in this question, are entitled to ask at the present 

 moment the sympathy of their own Government, and ft> 

 hint to the Foreign Secretary the propriety of his niakiag 

 some arrangement with the Peruvian Government by 

 which the guano trade may be thrown open with equal 

 advantage to that Government, and their bondholders, 

 and manifest gain to the landlord and shipping interests . 

 of this country. Instead of the 140,0^0 tons do ed out 

 to us by the " only" importers in 1 H50, we should soon 



see at least the 280,000 tons which the unfettered entei* 



