THE AGRICULTURAL GAZETTE. 



[Nov. 29, 



The 



to l " e ' 



the nitrogenous constituents 



urine of man, into 



of animals 



which all 



are finally 

 This most 



gla 



deposited, is completely lost to the fields, 

 important of all manures, so properly estimated in r lan- 

 ders, Germany, and China, is alto-ether lost to the 

 En lish agriculturist." I do not find, that I can recol- 

 lect, that Liebig attributes a large early development to 

 the application of inorganic manures, and wecanno 

 doubt that on an early and large development will 

 depend, all other things being equal, the future growth 

 of a plant ; a plant early nourished must exceed in its 

 future growth that which has not been so stimulated, 

 both from the increased number of leaves, and .rom 

 their i nlargement, the capacity of a plant to dnnkin 

 food, organic food, from the air is increased, while the 

 larger sizo of its roots, proportional to the overground 

 growth, will enable it to take up a larger column of 

 water containing a proportional amount of inorganic 

 matters. In the rearing of animals we may find an 

 analogical proof of this, if proof were necessary ; the 

 animal well fed when young will, in its after growth, 

 alwavs excel that which has been stinted. The inor- 

 ganic materials of a plant bear so small a proportion to 

 its organic components, that it would appear more 

 requ te to supply these latter; and the more so as in 

 giving these to the soil in the form of manure, we also 

 giv lie former, perhaps, in a proportional quantity, and 

 by the action of the organic matters so given, we bring 

 so much of the inorganic ones in the soil into a fit state 

 to be imbibed by the plants (roots or leaves I enter not 

 now into the discussion), as these organic matters can 



act upon. 



But it is to be remarked, that even in soils to which, 

 either from their composition or from the locality, 

 inorganic matters do not appear to be necessary, their 

 application is attended with much success, as in the 

 instance of lime and salt, the first experiments in which 

 were tried in Scotland so near the sea-side that the sea 

 water, somewhat evaporated, was used for slacking the 

 lime. At Aghada, situate on the tongue of land that 

 forms the south-east boundary of the Cove of Cork, a 

 retired captain of the East India Company's naval 

 service, used with perfect success lime and salt compost 

 on poor well worn stubbles, by no means prime land ; 

 and he assured me he had better crops from it of Pota- 

 toes, Wheat, and Clover, than from his yard and stable- 

 dung, or from the Cork town manure. 



In the burning of land, where much of the organic 



matters of the soil are dissipated, and which takes place 



on many of the poorer soils of Ireland at short intervals, 



large products of Potatoes and Oats are obtained without 



any organic matters ever being supplied ; the plan is to 



pare and burn the surface, to plant Potatoes, followed 



by Oats. The land is then left without seeds to recover 



a sward as it m iy, which it does in four or five years, 



And is then again burned and cropped as before. The 



pasturage it affords is scant enough ; and as Liebig 



remarks of the fruitful corn land around Naples, "The 



animals fed on these fields yield nothing to these soils 



which they did not formerly possess. The weeds 



upon which they live spring from the soil, and 



to have the opportunity of so effectively bringing 

 the subject again under the notice of our readers.] 

 To Professor Henslow. — De&r Sir,— Following your 

 advice, I drilled about 6 acres of land with red Clover 

 last spring, without any corn crop, and manured the 

 land with 20 or 30 different manures. There was a good 

 crop all over, and in some places, where particular 

 manures had been applied, a splendid crop. It was cue m 

 August, at which period the ground was perfectly covered 

 over ; soon afterwards the Clover commenced decaying 

 in small patches over the whole of the field ; and as far as 

 I can jud<re, the decay is equally distributed over the best 

 and worst°manured portions ; the decayed spaces are not 

 very extensive at present, and I have had sticks placed at 

 the extremities to mark the progress. This field was 

 Clover two years ago. I should wish very much to have 

 the benefit of your advice, if you could contrive to come 

 here for a day or two at any time during the winter, as 

 I think a careful inspection of the plants might enable 

 you to form some opinion respecting the cause of the 

 disease. At present, I think the decay is arrested, but 

 I fully expect to find it extending rapidly in the spring. 

 It is very singular that this plant should be the only 

 agricultural plant which I find any difficulty in growing 

 every year upon the same soil ; it will require the 

 combined efforts of physiologists and chemists to 

 make a full solution of this interesting problem. 



/. B. Lawes, Rothamsted, St. Albcm's, Nov. 20. 



To J. B. Lawes, Esq.— Dear Sir,— Instructive as 

 your experiment undoubtedly is, excuse me for saying 

 it is not precisely the one I have suggested. I have 

 been desirous of knowing how Clover comports itself 

 when sown with and without Barley, all things else 

 being the same ; your experiment is very suggestive, for 

 it seems to show that its being sown with Barley is not 

 always (if it ever be) a cause of those failures of which 

 agriculturists frequently complain. If the cause of these 

 failures is to be sought, as I have long suspected, in 

 the peculiar treatment which this plant receives, its 

 ewn peculiar constitution being considered with refer- 

 ence to that treatment, we must not only inquire 

 what effect its being sown with Barley has upon 

 it, but what may be the effect of its being mown 

 earlier or later by a few weeks or even days. I 

 could wish you had left a moiety of each parcel of 

 this field unmown, to see whether such portions were 

 also liable to go off, as well as those which were mown 

 in August. Better still if you had mown at intervals 

 a little piece at a time. There are many plants esteemed 

 to be perennial, which, under culture, scarcely last more 

 than two, three, or four years ; and possibly, Clover 

 will not bear the treatment to which you have subjected 

 it, and recover sufficiently to last for two years. I can 

 easily fancy a difference of a few days in the period 

 of mowing a plant of this sort might make all 

 the difference to its successful cultivation. Possibly 

 the sap prepared for the peculiar functions of a second 

 year's growth may not have been stored in the roots, 

 and your removing the stems too early may have 

 intercepted the process. Many plants will not bear 

 being pruned except at particular stages of their growth. 



** ^e> are not ever* mentioned in my replyl^hhV 

 to this inquiry, I assure the curious innnira. *uJ: I 



t u ii i CUri0U ? ln( * uir er that wh*n i»ll 

 . I shall also steal peese and turket « i ««J I? 1 

 I sha 1 obtain in mat way T 1,1 the 



*Q answer 



- m — 



hares and rabbits 



first hamper full * olltX x uuiaiQ 1Q Lnat way j ... , - r «.„ 

 present of. But my friend denies that the excuse il?^ * 

 him was a correct one ; yet I made it in mercy orTn ,-V? 

 ness to him, and I really think he should so havJ rlS H n . d - 

 But I will let the reader iudze betw^n „. °if. n.^« l? ^ it. 



me 



auu x yuuic jum vttu pwub, * lauuuuy own tnat every 

 of the servants, tenants and all, were downright p achero " 

 m that notable estate, or M after that," yo»i write, "I wag 



_ , that 



which they return to it as excrement must always be Pray take these ideas as they occur, for I am sure you 



less than that which they extract. The fields, there- 

 fore, can have gained nothing from the mere feeding of 

 cattle upon them ; on the contrary, the soil must have 

 lost some of its constituents." He before had observed, 

 * Corn has been cultivated on this land for thousands of 

 years, without any part of that which is annually re- 

 moved from the soil being artificially restored to it." 



Land is recovered by mere fallowing it, either 

 -worked or unworked, and m Ireland it is a most common 

 practice to leave exhausted land to recover itself, 

 without seeds even, and which it does do in a few years, 

 and is then able to give a fresh succession of crops. 



Liebig found the modus operandi of inorganic matters, 

 and their importance to the vegetable economy, little 

 known and less appreciated. I do not recollect any 

 notice of them in the older writers, with the exception 

 of some confused notions of the action of lime, phos- 

 phorus, &c, by practical writers, and even the scientific 

 ones seem to have had very ill-defined opinions ; it was 



f u 0t u determiDed in w,iat wa, y sa,ts assist vegetation, 

 whether by hastening the putrefaction of animal sub- 

 stances contained in the soil, or by attracting the 

 tomidity of the atmosphere." The experiments of 



Robert led him to believe « that though beneficial to the 



Sw *f me Sp€deS > and re ^ite to the health of 

 others, earths are not capable of affording any consider- 



hendpTT hme , nt t0 the P lant " Sir H- D ^y appre- 

 e^ded a 1^ of vegetable food by exposing the soil to 



solely tor destroying weeds. Agriculture was only an art, 



pressed with the importance of his researches, anxious 

 to force them o* the farmers' notice, his mind absorbed 

 m the wondrous data he had found, and carried away by 

 enthusiasm (ever an attendant on genius), it was easy 



Sit \ i "^ they held in h5s " Lfebig l«w 



ine oeiiet (*h ICU I doubt of his entertaining that thev 

 m tins connection. /. M. Goodiff, Granard. 



Home Correspondence 



0>rrespmdence on the Clover Failure.~T\y Q hw 

 been favoured with the following letters between Mr 

 Lawes and Professor Henslow on this subjec^d are 





are not likely to regard such suggestions, as many 

 farmers would be apt to look upon them, worthless, if they 

 were not followed by an immediately favourable result ; as 

 your experiment stands — it affords us only one fact, viz., 

 that Clover sown with 30 different manures, and mown 

 in August, is liable to go off. If you had grown half the 

 field with Barley and half without, at successive inter- 

 vals, the interest of the experiment would have been 

 greatly enhanced. Viewing the question physiologically, 

 without regard to the chemistry involved in the manur- 

 ing, I. think the experiment should be repeated under 

 the form here suggested, and I would repeat it on the 

 very same ground without adding one particle more of 

 manure to the soil. /. S. Henslow, Hitcham, near 

 Hadleigh. Nov. 24. 



Game. — First, let me have a few words with u W. F. G. F." 

 I thank this gentleman for his letter in general; but I am 

 sure he will excuse me, if I observe, how provoking ami dis- 

 heartening it is, after an advocate, like mysef, has been con- 

 tending for a certain point through a series of letters, for some 

 gentleman to start up, like one of the Seven Sleeper*, and 

 state, that the chief point on which the whole question turns 

 has been entirely overlooked. " W. F. G. F.'s" complaint is 

 exactly of this kind ; for had he paid attention to all I have 

 written on this subject, he would have found that at the com- 

 mencement ot this discussion I undertook to prove that game, 

 taken in the aggregate, was of much m«>re value than injury to 

 the country at large, and that game-preserving gentlemen were 

 public benefactors ; and at the same time I also particularly 

 stated that game could not be preserved without the employ- 

 ment of gamekeepers. " W. F. G. F." would also have found, 

 that, when my opponent replied, that tenant farmers would be 

 the best keepers, I answered that tenant f irmers neither would 

 nor could preserve the game ; for I said, if one would, a 

 hundred would not, and so for want of keepers all the game 

 would be destroyed off their lands. And does not Mr. Cuthill 

 himself admit this, in his letter of November 1st ? wherein he 

 asks "what has become of all the h^res and rabbits round 

 Manningtree and Wix." Now, Mr. CathiU knows very well 

 that some 1-4 years since around Manningtree and Wix the 

 game was well preserved by two most excellent landlords, 

 whose absence from this neighbourhood, from that time, has 

 been greyly lamented by all farmers. Then, in my parish of 

 Wix, we had plenty of game, and several game certificates were 

 taken out in it ; but now game has become so scarce, that, 

 although we have 3000 acres of land under the plough, divided 

 into farms, on an average of 200 acres each, not one tenant 

 farmer takes out a certificate, since there is no game for them 



1 will let tne reader judge between us. Mr. CuthiuZvIj 

 this important question : "How was it," said hi .^ 



game preservers, on becoming farmers themselves aW™ ^ 

 up preserving |- When 1 replied that such was not til 



bat just the reverse; for that I knew several gentlernpn ? 

 preserved game, and that, with one single excention .i7 * 

 them farmed a part of their estates, and some of them V.ri °i 

 extensively; and I now repeat that such is the oas* *l £ 

 present time ; and I defy a refutation of what I write p! 

 to get my friend out of hi? dilemma, I made the onlv i™ 

 for him I could, namely that his informant had deceived h r 

 but now he tells us that no one could deceive him fo ^ ' 

 this subject he had received no information from anvl' ° n 

 creature." Then, Mr. Cuthill, allow me politely to inform "'* 

 that you have deceived yourself ; for I know in Es*ex and 'J- ' 

 where many game^ preservers, and every one of them b?t 

 extensive farmer, with the exception I have above stated v^ 

 Cuthill informs us that garden cultivation will destroy 11 

 wire worms and slugs ; but I say, not always, and in all DUce« 

 though it may in some places. But farmers cannot garden 

 cultivate ; and if they could, near woods, without pheasanti 

 and partridges, I defy them to keep down the millions of insects 

 whi ;h are bred in such localities ; and for lack of game three 

 extensive and well educated nursery gardeners of my acquaint 

 ance keep flocks of bantams in their gardens solely for the 

 purpose of destroying the insects which are injurious to their 

 crops. But come, let ua reason together a little further. You 

 inform us that when a boy you lived on an estate on which you 

 say, and I quote your own words, " I candidly o*m that everv 

 one-*" 1 - *" * **— *-« j— .. 3 



From _ _ 



head keeper and head factotum to my lamented friec id James 

 Smith, Hut when shooting time came on we had to travel 

 a few fields before we got a shot, showing that I wasaViad 

 keeper." A bad keeper, aye, sure enough you were, a bad 

 keeper indeed. I have heard much of that celebrated Mr. 

 James Smith, as being known through the world for his 

 shallow draining ; but the man who cauld go to an estate for 

 11 a head keeper and head factotum," whereat every person on 

 it, both tenants and servants, were downright poachers, must 

 have had brains much shallower than his drains. But my 

 worthy opponent still proceeds, and we must follow him, though I 

 assure him that a sense of duty alone compels me in this instance 

 to do so. " But I have known," continues he again, "bailiffs 

 who were anxious men, encourage poachers, and wink at their 

 visits ; they were as blind as bats when they saw men poach- 

 ing." I know not how blind bats are ; but 1 know that they 

 see better in the dark than most men can in the light, and 

 hence they are not so blind as the bailffs were who closed their 

 eyes whilst poaching thieves stole and carried away their 

 masters' property. But " my reverend opponent will tell me," 

 adds Mr. Cuthill, "that those bailiffs were dishonest; hut I 

 say no ; for, like me, they look upon hares and rabbits as 

 nothing but wild animals, the destruction of which is a great 

 blessing." My good Sir, do reconsider this last sentence, and 

 try to blot it out of your memory, though it is indelibly fixed 

 upon paper. It matters not what you and bailiffs may choose 

 to call your employers' property; nor can any name you may 

 apply to game vindicate the conduct of stewards on an estate 

 who encourage poachers to steal it, or to shut their eyes whilst 

 the rogues, in their vocation, are carrying it away. By the 

 same rule, bailiffs may call a sheep a wolf, or a pig a fox, or 

 a goose an eagle, and thus encourage poachers to thieve taem, 

 and wink at their visits ; the principle in each case being tne 

 same precisely, if I have any judgment in such matters, i 

 must however repeat that I have read with much mtereif 

 many of my friend Mr. Cuthill's valuable communication!, ana 

 I trust I shall live to read many more of them, hut l bnouui 

 wound my feelings were I to say that he is equally 8UCC ^ 

 in his defence of poaching. Geo. Wilkin*. [We have been iorced 

 materially to abridge this communication.] ^ 



The Phosphate Nodules of Felixtow, tn Sitfo/k.-u a 

 late number of the Agricultural Gazette, an interesting 

 lecture of Dr. Daubeny has been published, showing how 

 modern chemistry has been directly and wdirecuy 

 serviceable to agriculture. In noting some ot the steps 

 by which the chemical compositions of the phospliatt 

 nodules in the red clay has been ascertained, he oasenes . 

 — « The next step in the investigation was to ascemin 

 the chemical constitution of the nodules ^Melve% iuw 

 this was effected through the exertions of Mr. J»oirae, 

 of Stanway, &c.» Dr°Daubeny will, I trust, excuse me 

 for saying this statement is incorrect. Keterenc 

 extract from my letter to the B^ryP^f^g 

 1845, published in the Agricultural Gazette i^ ^ 

 p. 180, will show him that Mr. Potter first m^ ^ 

 nodules, and detected 56 per cent, of the P h ^ 

 lime in them. I am afraid that I am m some in ^ 

 responsible for a few misapprehensions ui 



red respecting the facts of the case, trom a * 



a passage in my original communication ^ 



logical Proceedings," to stand after Mr. r° % ™ th ere 



I have 

 analyst has 



known to me the results of his analysis ^ ^ 

 stated :— « I am not aware whether aD ^ h ^^ a t the 

 ever yet been made of them." This was mitteu to 

 time the paper was written, and had been ^ { 



the Geological Society. But before i ^^ ifl 

 happened to be in Cambridge, and met • ^ 

 Mr. Deck's shop. I pointed out ™ onclusion at 

 gentlemen, practical chemists, the , a ble origi^ 

 which I had arrived respecting the p ^ tbeif 



of the nodules, and alluded to the P 095 ^^ to the 

 becoming serviceable in agriculture, ace c ^p r olites. 

 recently-published remarks of Liebig o un( j er ^ 00 k 

 Mr. Potter, to whom I presented sP^ e ^ gU it at th« 

 to analyse them, and to report to me tn .^ wn en 

 approaching meeting of the Geological ^ ^ ^d 



to shoot. But my friend asks, 



rou d Manningtree and Wix V* What ! Why, those amiabU 

 entiemen, the armed midnight bandits, have stolen the whole 

 tor want of game preservers. But, my friend writes, 

 that because he cons ; ders game to be nothing but wild 

 animals, their destruction ia a great blesiing ; but do my 

 parishioners consider its destruction a great blessin^ f 

 No such thing; but a great loss, for many valuable reasons, 

 both to my parish and the neighbourhood. But my worthy 

 opponent asks if I have turned poacher and snared them all, 



my communication was to be read. ^^ an J 



I stated to the meeting the analysis he i re d, and 



exhibited the phosphate of lime he nao . p ^ 



-^ r _.:n _ fZrZ His ana iy S is appeared _. n ^ 



of the views i 



anied mj 



which I still possess. 



singularly confirmatory v * — ar ,<.omP aiu *~ 'a 



■ - - ... s „ u .„ * „ This analysis ought, certainly, to hj« ^ ^ a ■£ 



What is become of the name paper ; but Mr. Potter requested DM^ w^ ^he " v, "* h 



_ _ subje«t» 



not to allude publicly any f« pt ; ier " ir y "a« ^ 

 until he should have made such enquiry ^ {0 



worth 



las 



satisfy him whether it would be nou 



make arrangements for procuring 



an important ingredient in h« ^^J g m ight have 



for 



1 



sequently was silent, in order that he ^ 

 first chance in any speculation tftai u» g 



the 

 out^ 



