78 Chronicles of Science, [Jan., 



of manures before the London Farmers' Club, -which is a remark- 

 able illustration of the progress made towards a satisfactory 

 relationship between scientific teaching and farm practice. 

 Instead of treating vegetable growth as a purely chemical phe- 

 nomenon; or supposing, as lecturers on agricultural chemistry 

 seemed formerly to do, that it only needs the supply of ele- 

 ments in manure to ensure a corresponding assimilation of them 

 by the growing plant, we now learn from the chemist what we 

 already knew by experience, that luxuriance of growth and abun- 

 dance of produce depend as much upon the mere question of even 

 and uniform distribution of food for plants — as much in fact upon 

 its accessibility — as upon the increase of its supply. We are told, for 

 example, that an inferior guano well powdered and mingled with a 

 sufficient quantity of diluent material so as to ensure its even dis- 

 tribution through the land, may be a greater help to the fertility 

 of the soil and a greater fertilizer of the current crop than a better 

 guano imperfectly applied. It is a truth of the same kind, which 

 Dr. Voelcker also told us, that no manure at all upon a stiff 

 clay land well tilled will tend to its fertility rather than a heavy 

 dressing of farm dung applied when the land is soft and liable to be 

 poached by the horses and carts employed in putting it on. 



The application of farm manure as a top dressing in dry weather 

 is now confidently advocated — even though a scorching sun and 

 driving winds should cause the separation of all evaporable matter 

 from it. There is no loss of ammonia during the putrefaction of farm 

 dung. The loss which it suffers during that process is due to the 

 washing of soluble salts out of it by rain. And if the dung be 

 spread at once upon the land, all its valuable constituents will find 

 their way into the soil. 



Among the other topics which have occupied the agricultural 

 world during the past quarter, is the growing organization of tenant 

 farmers in Chambers of Agriculture, through which their voice may 

 be heard in public discussions, and through which their views may 

 be influentially urged on Government. "We must also refer to the 

 attempt of the Eoyal Agricultural Society to promote agricultural 

 education by the addition of their prizes to the list of distinctions 

 offered for competition before the University examiners of middle- 

 class schools. And lastly, we may mention that, moved by the 

 disasters of the past harvest season, the Society of Arts is about to 

 offer a prize for any contrivance or machine which shall artificially 

 accomplish or facilitate the drying process on which our hay and 

 corn harvests depend for the quality of their produce. 



