114 ON PHOSPHATE XODULKS. 



observations will be worthy of the most serious attention of agri- 

 culturists." 



This, too, has proved to be the case ; nearly twenty years have 

 elapsed since those words were penned, and a new era was opened in the 

 history of agricultural science. Experiment after experiment has been 

 tried, and the value of this new artificial manure has ever been more 

 and more highly appreciated.* 



In 1848 a new discovery was made. " It had long been a remark of 

 common notoriety, that the soil of the lower part of the chalk forma- 

 tion possesses remarkable powers of fertility, very little or no manure 

 being required to produce many crops ; especially in the application of 

 bone manures, in most instances it was positively useless."! This occirrs 

 upon the out-cropping of the " upper green sand" deposit, which is im- 

 mediately below the chalk at Farnham, in Surrey. Mr. T. Mainwaring 

 Paine, in December, 1847, forwarded some " marl" to an eminent che- 

 mist, and the result proved that a large percentage of phosphate of 

 lime was contained in the soil ; nor was this all : in trenching for drains 

 through the gault, the lower green-sand was exposed, upon which the 

 former reposes. This, too, proved to contain layers of " mortar-like" 

 substance, with nodular masses interspersed, highly charged with earthy 

 phosphates. 



On the publication of Mr. Paine's interesting discovery, Professor 

 Henslow called attention, in the ' Gardener's Chronicle,' to the Suffolk 

 nodules, which were then being raised at the rate of sixty tons a week ; 

 as well as to the fact that he had previously suggested to Mr. John Deck, 

 a practical chemist of Cambridge, to analyze some of the nodules so 

 abundant in the upper green-sand stratum in that neighbourhood. 

 Having followed the Professor's suggestion, they were proved to contain 

 earthy phosphates, in proportions varying from fifty-seven to sixty-one 

 per cent. The Professor had communicated his views in a letter to the 

 ' Bury Post,' July 3rd, 1845, nearly three years previous to Mr. Paine's 

 re-discovery, concluding with the words — " Whether these various no- 

 dules, thus abounding in phosphate of lime, can be made available for 

 agricultural purposes, must depend upon the possibility of their being 

 collected at a cheaper rate than an equal quantity of bones can be. 

 Perhaps this is a point not yet sufficiently determined ; though my own 

 opinion is decidedly in favour of their being sufficiently abundant in 

 some places to make it worth while to collect them." This was soon to 



* An interesting paper"(amongst many) may be found on page 155 of the 'Gar- 

 dener's Chronicle' for 1846, by Mr. J. B. Lawes, on the relative effect of this manure 

 upon turnips and grain crops, in which he shows that the latter will receive little 

 or no benefit unless nitrogenous matter be in the soil as well. At the present day 

 we believe it to be pretty generally abandoned for manuring corn : its great use 

 consists in hurrying the young turnips over the ten 'er and critical age of child- 

 hood, when they are mercilessly attacked by "the fly." 



f From an article in the ' Agricultural Gazette,' page 121. 1848. 



