THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



G47 



effect on the growth reacts on the manure, 

 producing an increasing similar action and 

 reaction. By August or Septeniber, (if 

 not much earlier,) the coarse manure will 

 be almost consumed. Instead of remain- 

 ing either dormant or wasting in the barn- 

 yard, it has before reappeared in the new 

 form of clover. And the augmentation 

 thus produced in the two growths of 

 clover, and both obtained within five 

 months, is very far more both in bulk and 

 value as manure, than the prepared ma- 

 nure consumed to produce this increase. 

 For whatever amount of soluble manure 

 may have been received as food through 

 the roots, will have been doubled in its 

 effect, and in the bulk and value of the 

 increased growth, by aid of the additional 

 supply of carbonic acid furnished from 

 the atmosphere through the leaves to the 

 plants. This gratuitous and bounteous 

 bupply of manure from the atmosphere, 

 is used by the leaves strictly in proportion 

 to (he amount of food for plants, or of the 

 total means of their support, derived from 

 the soil through the roots. And thus, for 

 whatever amount of manure that is o-iven 

 judiciously by the farmer to his crops, 

 through clover as a manuring crop, he is 

 rewarded by having an equal or jierhaps 

 greater value added by the bounty of Na- 

 ture. And thus his drafts upon the un- 

 limited manuring fund of the atmosphere 

 will be accepted and paid, in exact pro- 

 portion to the amount of manure or other | 

 aid to the productive power of his land,| 

 that his own industry and care have fur- 1 

 nished. All plants are thus supplied with 

 an important portion of their food and 

 support from the atmosphere. This ])or- 

 tion is nearly all the carbon received into 

 their structure.* But all plants of the pea 

 tiibe, and among them red clover, diaw 

 more from the atmosphere, and less in 

 proportion from the soil, for nourishment, 

 than any other , plants. Hence the great 

 and peculiar value of red clover and of 

 the field (or' Indian) pea as manuring j 

 crops, wherever they have suitable soil j 

 and climate. 



* Acoorflin^i to Liebi^'s novel (and as I be- 

 lieve incorrect) views, the whole of the carbon 

 in plants is received through the leaves, and 

 none (subsequently to the llrst development of 

 the leaves) through the roots or directly from the 

 soil. 



According to the cases above supposed, 

 the farmer who applies his manure to corn, 

 so far as it operates on that crop, converts 

 so much of his manuring capital to grain, 

 which he consumes or sells. If applied 

 to clover, the operating part of the ma- 

 nure is as much as that both used and 

 wasted on the corn land, and moreover, 

 the product is consumed, but is reinvested 

 and doubled in amount as manure, within 

 a few months ; and all of which accumu- 

 lation is ready to act upon and to feed the 

 crop of wheat, which will be sown in the 

 autumn of the same year. 



And there is another case, of a practice 

 formerly universal, and not yet entirely 

 abandoned eveiywhere, with w^hich the 

 comparison of advantages presents still 

 more marked results. This practice (copied 

 from England, without regard to difference 

 of climate) is the letting the winter-made 

 manure remain in the barn-yard through 

 the summer, either undisturbed, or still 

 more violently and wastefully fermented. 

 In such cases, besides all the actual pro- 

 ducts of fermentation, (the amount of 

 which loss I do not pretend to estimate,) 

 there is of the remaining part, which is 

 saved, the loss of a year's use and profit. 

 And the interest on this capital, if proper- 

 ly used, would havl; been one hundred 

 per cent, in carbon furnished from the at- 

 mosphere. It may be objected, that the 

 use of the barn-yard manure thus kept is 

 not lost, (always excepting the wasted 

 part,) but that the use is merely postpon- 

 ed for a year. This is true ; but if the 

 manure had been on clover, in the same 

 time the amount and value would have 

 been doubled. It would, in its new form, 

 (of clover,) and in double quantity, be as 

 fresh for recommenced action the next 

 year, and as likely to continue acting for 

 as many subsequent crops, as the redu- 

 ced body of barn-yard manure, then first 

 applied. 



According to the views presented above, 

 there can be scarcely any waste or loss of 

 the solid, or even liquid and soluble parts 

 of manure, thus applied to clover. There 

 is, however, one source of loss, and which 

 particular loss is greater than on the same 

 score when manure is plowed under. This 

 is the escape of ammonia, and perhaps 

 other volatile parts of fermenting manure, 

 which if of ammonia, is evident to the 

 sense of smell when the mass of manure 



