118 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



harrows, can be obtained in an instant. They 

 are excellent for harrowing in all kinds of grain 

 on land that is cleared, expediting the work, 

 and performing much better than any other at 

 present in use." 



AN OFFER. 



For every four new subscribers that any friend 

 will send us, we will furnish him a copy of the 

 first, third, or fourth volume of the Planter, and 

 for every ten subscribers, we will furnish all 

 three of these volumes. 



The edition of our back numbers of the cur- 

 rent volume is completely exhausted; subsequent 

 subscribers will, therefore, be furnished for one 

 dollar with all the numbers from the time of 

 subscription up to July, 1846. 



For the Southern Planter. 

 MANURES. 



Mr. Editor, — You published in the January 

 number of the Planter an article signed Coates- 

 wood, headed, " manures do not sink," and you 

 give your approbation to it, by recommending it 

 to your readers. This is an important practical 

 question, and I hoped to have seen before this 

 time, the false reasoning of the article exposed, 

 and the wrong conclusion set aside by some one 

 more capable than myself of doing justice to 

 the subject ; as this has not been done, I will 

 even attempt it myself. 



The writer asserts that t{ manure does not 

 sink," and to prove it, adduces as a conclusive 

 argument, the fact, that if liquid manure be 

 filtered through sand, the impurities will be de- 

 tained and the water, will pass off nearly pure. 

 It is true that the coloring matter — the floating 

 particles of undecomposed and insoluble vegeta- 

 ble and animal matter will be retained in the 

 sand ; but it is no less true, and it is the gist of 

 the matter that all, or nearly all of the valuable 

 constituents of the manure pass through dis- 

 solved in the water. Chemists and apothecaries 

 know this ! 



In further support of his argument that the 

 soil acts as a filterer preventing the manure from 

 sinking, he refers to the process of clarifying 

 cider and other liquors, and also to the fact, that 

 our springs are kept pure by reason of this fil- 

 tration. Now as regards the clarifying of liquors 

 nothing is retained but the insoluble vegetable 

 matter, the salts and acids. The constituents 

 which give a character to the liquor, pass off 

 with it, and the same thing happens with the 

 rain that falls on the surface of earth — every 

 drop that returns to our wells or springs, returns 

 charged with more or less saline or mineral 

 matter, unless deprived of it, in its wanderings, 

 by some chemical force, and in truth there is no 



such thing as pure well or spring wather. They 

 are all impregnated with saline or mineral mat- 

 ter, some slightly, others perceptibly. But much 

 the largest part of the rain that falls on our cul- 

 tivated fields, neither runs off, nor passes into the 

 earth to any considerable depth, but being im- 

 bibed by the soil itself, it holds in solution every 

 soluble substance fit for the food of plants, (and 

 no others are in a fit condition,) and presents 

 them thus prepared to the roots of the growing 

 crop. 



The only other remaining proof that is offered 

 to support the assertion that manure does not 

 sink, but that it all escapes by evaporation, is 

 an experiment which the writer says establishes 

 his proposition beyond cavil, viz: That if ma- 

 nure be enclosed in a box open only at top, it 

 will in a very short time become entirely inert. 

 There is such a thing as a false experience, the 

 result of inaccurate observation. 



I will venture to say, that no one else who 

 encloses manure in a tight box open only at top, 

 will find it in a very short time become entirely 

 inert but that even after a very long time, it will 

 contain many of the most active elements of 

 nutrition, and for the simple reason, that many 

 of the constituents of the manure, most impor- 

 tant to vegetation are not volatile, and these 

 uniting with the products of the rotting manure 

 which are volatile, form with them soluble and 

 fixed salts. We shall see hereafter that the at- 

 mosphere itself, instead of bearing aloft all these 

 nutritious compounds, is made by its presence, 

 actually to minister to their formation and by 

 the strong power of chemical attraction its con- 

 stituents are separated and forced into new and 

 very different combinations. Now if the box 

 be open at bottom as well as at top, these solu- 

 ble compounds will be carried downwards by 

 their specific gravity, and by the action of the 

 rains and dews, and will impregnate and enrich 

 the soil. This last experiment my neighbors 

 and myself try every year, on a large scale, in 

 the shape of cow pens and there is no more cer- 

 tain or effectual way of enriching land, and if 

 the pen remains unploughed for a twelvemonth, 

 the improvement is only the more apparent. 



It is stated further, that " every body has seen 

 the rapid deterioration of land, exposed to the 

 sun, without the benefit of trees, or a crop to 

 shade it." In other words, that the sun will 

 kill the ground. This is altogether a new idea 

 to me ! I had been led to believe, from the prac- 

 tice of those nations most advanced in the art 

 and science of agriculture, as well as from the 

 experience of our own most judicious farmers, 

 that no such result has followed the oft repeated 

 summer fallows of the one, nor the early fallows 

 of the other ; on the contrary good reasons might 

 be given to show why an actual increase of fer- 

 tility should attend the exposure of soils to at- 

 mospheric influences. The idea of shading the 



