THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



name plant on the same field." Now, though 

 Mr. Lawes does not think it desirable to culti- 

 vate the same crops on the same land, he has 

 succeeded in doing so to an extent which one 

 would suppose from the above sentence, should 

 have secured the approbation of the great 

 German chemist There is now growing on 

 Broadba'ck* the tivelfth annual wheat crop y 

 and the crop of last year, (1854,) was the larg- 

 est yet harvested from it ; one plot yielding 55 

 bushels of wheat per acre. So with the tor- 

 nips on Barnfiefd ; the thirteenth annual crop 

 is now growing, and though the soil is rather 

 too heavy to be well adapted for turnip culture, 

 yet good crops are obtained, fully equal, as we 

 know from our own observation, to those 

 grown in the neighborhood, under the ordinary 

 system of rotation. So in Geescroft, twelve 

 crops of beans have been grown in twelve year.?, 

 and removed from the soil, and yet as good 

 crops are obtained as the farmers could desire. 

 S© of peas and tares. Clover is an exception ; 

 no matter how lavishly and variously it is 

 manured, clover will not flourish continually 

 on the same land. But with other crops, Mr 

 Lawes has " solved the single problem worthy 

 of scientific agriculture " At the present 

 price of wheat and%mmonia, Mr. Lawes or 

 any other intelligent agriculturist, can not only 

 grow wheat continuously on the same land, 

 but can also grow it with a profit. If his 

 land, without manure, will produce 15 bushels 

 of wheat per acre, he can make it produce 30 

 bushels by an application of from $12 to $15 

 worth of manure. If wheat sells for 80 cents 

 to SI per bushel, such a system will not pay; 

 if it is worth from $2 to $3 per bushel, noth- 

 thing can be mrore profitable. 

 Liebig says : 



" So to explain the action, a»d recommend the 

 use of ammonia salts in the production of wheat, 

 as Mr. Lawes has done, appears to be mockery of 

 the present state of agriculture ; for all the salts 

 now manufactured in Europe, are not enough to 

 supply the fields of the kingdom of Saxony with 

 the quantities used by Mr. Lawes." 



This appears to us a very lame argument 

 What if salts of ammonia are not now manu- 

 factured in sufficient quantities ? If farmers 

 can obtain what they want at present, shall 

 they not use them ? . The ammonia salts used 

 in agriculture or commerce, are made princi- 

 pally from the refuse liquor of the gas works ; 

 and in nearly every city in Europe the greater 

 portion of this liquor runs to waste. In this 

 country, we know of but one establishment 



* Smadb'ack the name of Mr Lnwes' experiment-.! 

 wlieatfii 'Id. All tiis fields in England are named. IJarn- 

 JUlit. Geeabrofi, HospJict<l, are the napieu of the exp-.-r- 

 imental turnip, bean, pea, tare, end clover fitdch, 



I where ammonia salts are manufactured from, 

 gas liquor for agricultural purposes Shall we- 

 condemn the use of ammonia salts, because 

 they are not at present extensively manufac- 

 tured, while we have the means of increasing 

 their production to an almost unlimited 

 extent ? 



But Mr. Lawes has not " recommended the 

 use of • ammonia salts in the production of 

 wheat." Mr Lawes tells us, indeed, that am- 

 monia is specially needed for the production of 

 wheat ; but he has never advised 'farmers tr> 

 use ammonia salts at their present price, Ho 

 used them in his experiments because they; 

 enabled him, for a special object, to apply am- 

 imoniafreo from the organic and mineral mat- 

 | ter united with it in barn-yard manure, guano, 

 rape cake, &c. These experiments led him to 

 the conviction* that ammonia, in ordinary agri- 

 culture, is greatly needed on all our wheat 

 soils, but he has never recommended farmers 

 to imitate his example, and purchase expensive 

 ammonia salts. He points to cheaper sources 

 of it. What these sources are, we shall sea 

 further on. 



Professor Liebig, in some parts of his late 

 work, appears to labor under the impression 

 that Mr. Lawes affirms that if ammonia be 

 present in sufficient quantity in the soil, the 

 wheat plant can. grow without minerals. We 

 cannot understand how any one could arrive 

 at such a conclusion from Mr. Lawes' writings. 

 Certainly he has never written any thing which, 

 favors such an idea; while he has repeatedly 

 declared that the '"growing plant must have., 

 within its reach a suSciency of the mineral 

 constituents of which it is to be budt up. n 

 lie also fully admits that the atmosphere and 

 rain-water ar j capable of supplying plants with 

 a considerable quantity of ammonia. On these 

 two main points, Liebig and Lawes are agreed, 

 In what, then, do they differ ? It is obvious 

 that they do differ very essentially, but in ' 

 what exact particulars, it is hard to say, sim- 

 ply because it is impossible to determine what 

 L'ebig at present teaches. From the general 

 tenor of his works, we conclude that ho be- 

 lieves, or did beueve among other things, that 

 the manurial requirements of a p'ant are re- 

 presented by its ashes. In other words, that 

 the proportion, in which potash, phosphoric . 

 acid, &c, exist in the ashes of a plant, is the 

 best proportion for tl em to exist iu the ma- 

 nure adapted for their growth. The ash of 

 wheat contains 50 per cent of phosphoric acid • 

 that of turnips only 10 per cent.; therefore, a 

 manure for wheat should contain five times as 

 much phosphoric acid as a manure for turnips 

 That Liebig and his follower* have taught tlii* 



