36—1851. 



THE AGRICl LTl R L CAZRTTE. 



An 



**y principle intelligible t<» the 

 ^L^I alth *h no doubt historical ami unical 



« might 1 and were given, for the e\ we of 

 -^ dttfervmv. The cpiestion he wished to have an- 

 ^^ bv those who defended the complicated s} 



nt in use in Great Britain and 



immou sense of I directly the statements of Mr. i'mey. Mr. 1'ueey is 



not a chemist by proionaion, and the extern of his 

 acquirements in chem rv as a science, is sufficiently 

 shown by his statements in regard to the forn .'f 



fat, iu the feed in 



*f ceBTeysmiiig at pree 



IrelacJ was, n< why such difference did exist, but why 

 it should u ■ bpfBT «d*t ? Why landed should not be 

 m em\W pawed from hand t hand as funded property 

 In earlv stages of civilisation land was transferred as 

 a*irr as a watch or any other chattel, and in proof of 

 he mentioned the earliest sale recorded in histor; 



, that of the field in Machpelah, by Ephron, to 



Abraham, when the latter paid 400 shekels of silver for 

 land, and the former gave it to Abraham without 



ore ado. 



Jbe great evils of our system of conveyancing were 



to arise from the necessity of mvestig ; the 



ef the seller every time land was offered for sale. 



Xf a person wished to purchase land he was put to an 



enormous expense and immoderate delay in ascertaining 



►r the vendor had a right to sell ; voluminous 

 of title had to be perused, doubts to be 

 answered, sod technical objections to be overcome 

 before he felt himself safe in completing the contract In 

 had made. If, having at last obtained the property lie 

 wanted, he in his turn wished to sell it, or raise money 

 upon it, the very same process had to he gone through 

 b» re his object could be accomplished. This state of 

 things had lasted for ages, but had at length be me 

 rata&able ; the public had long been calling for a 



, and they would long ago have had their sire 

 had they not, as the lecturer asserted, been thwarted by 

 those interested in keeping up existing abuses — by those 

 members of the legal profession who looked after their 

 much more than the interests of those whom they 

 professed to serve. 



The first step in the way of reform was to insist upon 

 and to obt a a register ; a register had long been 

 called for, but had not yet been obtained ; the lecturer 

 was, however, pleased to see by the report of the 

 "Registration and Conveyancing Commission," published 

 last year, that the importance and necessity of a general 

 register was strongly urged by several learned members 

 of the legal profession, and that Lord Campbell, acting 

 upon that report, had brought forward and passed 

 through the House of Lords a bill for carrying such 

 recommendation into effect. The lecturer did not say 

 much in favour of this bill ; though sound in principle, 

 its practical working would, he was afraid, prove expen- 

 sive and troublesome, though far less so than the present 

 system. Having obtained a general register, the lecturer 

 would compel every person who wanted to sell or mort- 

 gage his property to register it before bringing it into 

 the market. That this might be effected, he proposed to 

 have a standing commission of five persons, somewhat 

 similar to that appointed in Ireland for the sale of encum- 

 bered estates ; this commission should examine the state of 

 the title to the property in question, and if this were 

 satisfactory, a sealed certificate to that effect should be 

 given to the owner ; with this certificate he should go 

 to the registrar and be registered as owner ; the com- 

 missioners' certificate, coupled with a certificate of 

 registration, should be a complete title to the property ; 

 when those two certificates had been obtained, and not 

 till then, should the property go into the market ; they 

 might then be transferred like any ordinary chattels 

 to whomsoever chose to buy them, and such person 

 would, on obtaining the certificates and a receipt for the 

 purchase money, become absolute owner, without trouble, 

 needless expense, or delay. 



Such is an outline of Mr. Rainy's scheme for facili- 

 tating the transfer of real property in this kingdom. 

 As the plan of one who has been all his life engaged in 

 conducting the sale of land, it deserves consideration. 



'■- 



crty, who consumes his capital instead of he 

 interest. 



The problem in agriculture, at the present day, i Hi 

 I " to ask for proofs of this truth, which no man Oi 

 of stock, from starch and sugar, ice doubts ; but the -rand object is to substitute for 



which he declares, in the same paper, is denied by farmyard manure, that universal food of plants, it 

 Boussingault and Dumas ; as well as by his notion that ^ — *•*" - > *- ; ~— 1 *~~« ~ai»— -~a a*~ ..^:_ 



:ypsum must be dissolved in 500 parts of water before 

 it can be transformed by the action of carbonate of 

 ammonia into sulphate of ammonia and carbonate sf 

 lime. It is precisely M. Boussiugault who has given 

 the strictest experimental proofs that starch really 

 possesses the property of becoming fat in the body of 

 animals, and M. Dumas who has proved that sugar is 

 converted into wax in the body of the bee ; from 

 which it does not of course follow, as Mr. Pusey sup- 

 poses, that starch is to be .given to animals by pre- 

 ference, with the view of producing fat. Moreover, it 

 is known to every tyro in chemistry, that thousands of 

 cwts. of sulphate of ammonia have been made by 

 simply bringing powdered gypsum into contact with 

 carbonate of ammonia, and that in the manufactory of 

 Nussdorf, near Vienna, the same pro©*>— treatment of 

 gypsum with the distillate of putrid urine — in all pro- 

 bability, is still employed. 



Chemistry, during the last 8 or 10 years, has given to 

 agriculture the most complete explanation of the nutri- 

 tion of plants and of the sources erf their food ; it has 

 shown that plants must obtain from the soil as well as 

 from the atmosphere a certain number of elements, if 

 they are to be developed and to thrive on the soil ; it 

 lias explained the causes of the advantage derived from 

 the mechanical preparation of the soil, from quick-lime, 

 from fallow, and from the rotation of crops. Chemistry, 

 therefore, has given to agriculture, the object of which is 

 the profitable production of plants, during these J ears, a 

 scientific basis which it did not previously possess, and 

 has thus supplied the first and most important condition 

 progress and of improvement. The fact that Mr. 

 Pusey in his article, which will be read with some 

 astonishment in Germany and France, speaks of phos- 

 phorus (it ought to be phosphoric acid), and of 

 ammonia, proves in the most striking manner the 

 injustice of his assertions ; for 8 or 10 years ago nothing 

 was known in agriculture ot phosphorus or phosphate 

 of lime and nothing of ammonia. It was known, indeed, 



elements obtained from other aud deeper sources, retain- 

 ing its full effica ; and this can only be done when we 

 shall have learned what as yet we 1 ow but imperfectly, 

 how to give to an artificial mixture of the individual 

 ingredients the mechanical form and chemical qualities 

 essential to their reception and to their nutritive action 

 on the plant ; for without this form they cannot per- 

 fectly supply the place of farm -yard manure. All our 

 lai ours must be dt >ted to the attainment of this impor 

 tant object 



The negative resuls of experiments, made without the 

 guidance of just principles, do no ajain in value by their 

 multiplication ; aud millions of them do not outweigh 



cause of its success be 



one successful exp< timent, if the 



recognj d and ascertained It is perfectly clear that 



WKxpUii/itd negatived n-ulte, or failures if they are to 

 serve as foundation for an opinion, will yield proofs the 

 more brilliant and striking, the mere foolishly and 

 thoi htlessly the experiments have been made : for in 

 this case their irreconcilability with the opinion v ich 

 they are to refute, is so much the greater. It is certain 

 that the most accurate knowledge of n m < and of 

 the laws of physics and m- vhanics does not suffice to 

 render a man an engineer, a machine-maker, or an 

 astronomer ; but to conclude from this that an acquaint- 

 ance with mathematics, with the foroee which produce 

 mechanical motion, aud with the la\ss of statics and 

 dynamics is useless for the engineer, the machinje- 

 maker, and the astronomer, is as absurd as it would be 

 to say that chemistry is not useful or neceesery to V. 

 agriculturist. True it is, that chemistry is only the: 

 useful, when we have acquired a thorough knowledge of 

 that science, and that it is perfectly uselees to those who 



do not understand it. 



livery discovery, every improvement, every new truth 

 in science, as in life, has two ordeals successively to pass- 

 through. In the first period of its existence it is proved 

 that the new thing is not true or of no value (let us call 

 to mind the circulation of the blood, gas-light, cow-pox* 

 eam-engines, &c, &c.) After it has fortunately got 



CRITIQUE BY LIEBIG ON MR. PUSEY'S 

 PAPER IN VOLUME XL OF THE ENGLISH 

 AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY'S JOURNAL. 



I* the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of 

 England, Vol. XI., Part IL, there appeared last year a 

 paper by Mr. Philip Pusey, on the progress of agricul- 

 tural knowledge during the preceding eight years, in 

 which, when considering the influence of chemistry 

 npon agriculture, he concludes as follows : u The 

 mineral theory too hastily adopted by Liebig, namely, 

 that the crops rise and fall in direct proportion to the 

 quantity of mineral substances present in the soil, or to 

 the addition or abstraction of these substances, which 

 are added in the manure, has received its death-blow 

 from the experiments of Mr. Lawes." " Mr. Lawes " 

 our best authority ," Mr. Posey adds, "has certainly 

 shown this much, that of the two active ingredients of 

 manure, the ammonia is especially suited to grain crops, 

 the phosphorus for Turnips, and that the woody matter 

 of straw are probably advantageous lor Turnips. Ex- 

 cept Liebi 5 recommendation to dissolve bones in 



sulphuric acid, and Sir Robert Kane's, to use Flax- 

 wat$r as manure, there is," says Mr. Pusey, " no im- 

 provement in agriculture which has been derived from 

 chemical discoveries." " It is a great mistake to sup- 

 pose that we can make agriculturists bv teachiiv them 

 doubtful chemistry."— (P. 392.) 



Those who should believe, in Germany and other 

 countries, that the above remarks of the former presi- 

 dent of the Royal Agricultural So ty of rJand ex- 

 press the public opinion of England, would d ive 

 themselves ; and, as an honorary member of that 

 ■ociety, I regard it as a point of honour to contradict 



intelligent person will deny that the discovery of the 

 true origin of the nitrogen of plants, of its derivation 

 from ammonia, has led to many most profitable appli- 

 cations. The farmer knows how he must proceed, in 

 order to fix this active ingredient in his manure, and at 

 the present time it is the gas works which enable him 

 to fertilise his fields with it. Of all this, eight years 

 before Mr. Pusey wrote, very little was known, and I 

 consider myself therefore justified in declaring that the 

 assertion of Mr. Pusey, " that chemistry, during that 

 long period, has only given to agriculture a rec pe for 

 manuring Turnips, and a new manure in Flax water,*' 

 is erroneous. The recommendation to dissolve bones in 

 sulphuric acid, or to use Flax-water as manure, has, in 

 a scientific sense, no greater value than a useful recipe 

 for good blacking. 



With regard to the experiments of Mr. Lawes (the 

 best authority, according to Mr. Pusey), they are 

 entirely devoid of value, as the foundation for general 

 conclusions. With a knowledge of our experience of 

 the effects of fallow, and of production on the large 

 scale, it requires all the courage derived from a want of 

 intimate acquaintance with the subject to assert that 

 certainly ammonia is peculiarly fitted for grain and 

 phosphorus for Turnips, and that the manuring with 

 straw is probably advantageous for Turnips ; for, not to 

 peak of individual cases, in which these substances have 

 been found to lead to an increase of produce, we might 

 prove, exactly as Mr. Lawes has done, for a hundred 

 thousand other fields, that these substances do not 

 increase the crop, or even that they do not in any wav 

 affect it. At one time precisely similar conclusions 

 were drawn with respect to the effects of gypsum, and 

 of nitrate of soda ; and such conclusions, in truth, are 

 only proofs how little those who draw them are 



acquainted with the principles of agriculture. Every- 

 thing, in t|ie action of any manure, depends on the com- 

 position of the soil to which it is added. To fertilise a 

 soil for grain by means of ammonia alone is like trying 

 to rear an ox with food from which the elements of his 

 bones and blood were excluded. 



manure, but no one through this period, it is next proved that the new thing 

 • _i ii . ., i. . j g not new ^ tuat it nas k een i 0I1 g known, that more than 



a hundred ji ars ago there were people enough who 

 knew it perfectly. It is only in the third period that 



The truth, on which Mr. 



Lawes has inflicted the death-blow, is yet in its first 

 stage, and my faith in it is such as to lead me to hope 

 that I may be permitted to live to see it in its sen.nd 

 and third stages.* It is Providence, of which Sir Robert 



that bones had a good effect 



knew what it was in the bones which really acted. Most 



agriculturists then believed that the good effects were 



to be ascribed to the organic matter, the gelatine of the 



bones ; and the detection of this mistake is surely a the new truth bears its fruits. 



great gain to agriculture. The nitrogen of plants was 



not then supposed to be derived from ammonia, but 



from the nitrogenous constituents of manure ; and no 





Feel was only the instrument, which, by the abolition of 

 the Corn-laws, has sent to the agriculturists of England 

 necessity, the mother of invention and of progress, in, 

 order to force them to overcome the fear and repugnance 

 they feel towards learning what is new. Let them not,, 

 however, deceive themselves by supposing that they can, 

 ever attain to real improvements, to real progress, or to 

 the perfecting of agriculture, unless they acquire 

 thorough and accurate knowledge of its principles. If 

 they are not furnished with the capital of science, they 

 will only waste their powers ; sooner or later they must 

 see that in this so-called mineral theory, in its develop- 

 ment and ultimate perfection, lies the whole future of 



agriculture. 



I know that energetic and vigorous race of men, to 



which, in its kind, no other can be compared, the English 

 yeomanry, and the wonders which they have accom- 



lished by industry, exertion, and perseverance. When 

 the English farmer has acquired the insight which is 

 still want ng, his iron will, strengthened by his motto, 

 "Throu^h, ,? will conquer all the obstacles which exist 



itween him and the light of science ; and when that 

 time comes, Great Britain will cease to import corn. 

 There is no want of land or capital. The agriculturist 

 must no longer calculate on protection ; the time is past 

 when the state ought to show or could show him any 

 favour. When the state is shaken to its foundations by 

 internal or external events ; when commerce, industry, 

 and all trades shall be at a stand, and perhaps on the 

 brink of ruin ; when the property and fortunes of all are 



— — ■■■— ^^— ■■ i ■ i n iii iii --■■ i i !■ ■ — - — ■■■—■■i. m ■ ■■- -■ — ■■■ 1 . 



* I do not conceal from myself that the discredit into which 

 the empUnmentof the constituents ef the ashes of planif, as 

 manure. m*j have fallen in Kngland, arises in pare t'rem the 

 so-called patent mineral manure. It was the discovery of a 

 new and remarkable compound of carbonate of potash with 

 carbonate of lime, which led, at that time, to the idea of the 

 composition of this manure. Ami it was on account of this 

 compound, which appeared likely to be of use in other ways* 

 that, according to the custom ot England, and by the advice 



jious men, the manure was patented. The composition 

 of the manure itselt could be no secret, -since erery plant 



showed by its as he.* the due proportion of the constituents 



The opinion that potash, in many cases soda, lime, essential to its growth. It was a circumstance deeply to be 



regretted, and the idea which this manure was intended to 

 brinir into operation, took the form of a commercial specula- 

 ti n. This, as I know for certain, was not the intention ot the 

 excellent .sons who manufactured the manure ; for in regard 



a a * % -r ^ 



magnesia, phosphoric acid, sulphuric acid, iron, and (for 

 the cerealia) alkaline silicates, are ingredients of a fertile 



along with certain cor. t- 





soil ; that these substances, o ^ „ m __ 



tuents of the atmosphere, constitute the food of plants, to the commercial working of the patent, they did exactly the 

 and are as essential to them as bread and meat to men, */' «*«; what would have been .necessary ^'^^^^^n 



, , /v . . . ,. . . . . . ., 7 1 ot pront. The idea was brought forth preseamrei}, era, . ■» ■■* 



or hay and Oat* to hones ;— tins opinion is not the | the 4 . aseof a chiid b rn ^^ the time, death quickly followed, 

 expression of a theory, but of a natural law or universal i hare, for three years past, on about 12 English acres o. the 

 fact. For such persons as understand the scope and most barren soil, nenr Gietsen, by the ^use oja mineral ^ anu ^* 



bearing of such a law of nature, that indispu axiom ^l^ Z<"Xu^££r£ ^h.c^U.^uJi, 



follows as a matter of com , which Mr. Fusey thinks J pr «riou9 to m\ experiment*, to he impoesti by all the a*r>- 

 the experiments of Mr. Lawea have annihilated ; for it ' cult axis ts who knew the land. For what i* cs d i miner ai 



v comcidea with the familiar troth, that a purse of ; ^^^^"^^1^ X - K £ri., S 



money becomes empty when the money is t. ten out of : t h 0flcis for t bt ir eern-tieM scar*eee of Palagonite (a nuae*ftl» 



it and not returned: or that a man must be reduced which gelatinises even with acetic acid;. 



