24 Valiie of Vegetable Matter in Soil. 



with the utmost vigour, being evidently supplied with nourish- 

 ment from decaying thistles and other weeds. 



"Farming, as it is practised now, is more often the act of 

 destroying natural fertility than adding to it, and it is therefore 

 no wonder that the land becomes impoverished." 



Mr. Faunce de Laune, elsewhere in his proofs, quotes 

 the opinion of the late Mr. T. Carington (Journal Royal 

 Agricultural Society, vol. xv., p. 490), who observes that 

 " no person who has not had experience will appreciate 

 fully the difficulty and tediousness of the operation of 

 converting into really good turf poor strong land which 

 has been constantly under the plough for generations, 

 and in which every bit of vegetable matter has been 

 used up by the practice of having periodical dead fallows 

 dressed with lime." 



The preceding remarks I have quoted all indicate the 

 really great difficulty connected with laying down land 

 to grass — the want of good physical conditions in the 

 soil, which can only be supplied by permeating it with 

 vegetable matter. The manurial conditions, from a 

 strictly speaking chemical point of view, may be good, 

 but they cannot make up for the want of good physical 

 conditions ; and the more I have studied the whole 

 subject by the light of theory confirmed by practice, 

 the more certain do I feel that the importance of keeping 

 up a good physical condition of soil, though generally 

 recognised, has never been sufficiently acted up to.* 

 My first practical experience regarding this point dates 

 a great many years back, and has ever since been the 



* The Italians, in some cases, cut gorse and heather, and pile the 

 cuttings between the rows of vines, and leave them (the gorse and 

 heather) to decay, after which the decayed vegetable matter is dug in, 

 in order to supply the soil with humus. It is interesting to observe 

 how mam everywhere found that this vegetable matter must be 

 supplied, and that no chemical manures can take its place. This 

 has been equally found by the Italian vine grower, the tea planter 

 and coffee planter of India, and it must every day become more and 

 more apparent to the cultivator of the humus-exhausted soila of Oieat 

 Britain. 



