I860.] 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



487 



in immense quantity in the atmosphere, is 

 the essential element of the soil and of 

 manure which insured the production of 

 crops; or that humus, which is also com- 

 posed of abundant atmospheric elements, 

 viz.: carbon, oxygen and hydrogen, is, with 

 nitrogen, an all-sufficient food for vegetables, 

 and that the earthy materials of the soil 

 acted merely mechanically or physically, in 

 furnishing a soft penetrable medium in 

 which their ramified roots could diffuse 

 themselves, and by which moisture, air, 

 gasses, heat, and the decomposed remains of 

 plants and animals (humus) are absorbed 

 and retained for their use: — then, a system 

 of husbandry which kept the soil sufficiently 

 drained, and in a light condition favorable 

 for the penetration of the tender rootlets 

 and the absorption of airs and vapors, and 

 gave it a proper amount of humus, would 

 preserve forever the fertility of the land, 

 however large and numerous the crops re- 

 moved from it. On such a theory as fhis, 

 modern husbandry in many places seems to 

 be based. But the facts are widely different, 

 and Liebig's peculiar merit, in his writings, 

 is in forcibly exhibiting what had already 

 been demonstrated by Carl Sprengel par- 

 ticularly, that the earthy materials, or min- 

 eral substances of the soil, do not act me- 

 chanically only, but that, on the contrary, 

 certain mineral substances, fortunately for 

 us, contained" in all soils, and, strange as it 

 may appear, in most rocks also, on the sur- 

 face of the globe, although generally in 

 minute quantities, were just as essential to 

 vegetable growth as the atmospheric ele- 

 ments above mentioned. 



These mineral substances, of which we 

 may mention potash, lime, magnesia, phos- 

 phates, sulphates, &c., &c., • although re- 

 quired in smaller quantities than the atmos- 

 pheric, elements, carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, 

 and nitrogen, are just as essential to the 

 perfection of organic structure as these, and 

 not the smallest microscopic plant or animal, 

 or the minutest cell of tissue could exist 

 without a certain definite quantity of them. 



These mineral elements, so called (found 

 in the most fertile soil only in relatively 

 small quantities), are, therefore, continually 

 taken up by growing vegetables, and re- 

 moved in crops, in quantities greater in pro- 

 portion to the larger growth. They pass, in 

 their food, into the bodies of animals, and 

 are discharged in their excretions; and thus, 

 when vegetable products or animals fed on 



them are taken from the land, more or less 

 of these essential elements are alienated 

 from the soil, and it becomes gradually de- 

 teriorated, however tine may have been the 

 tilth — however careful the husbandry; un- 

 til, in the end, the earth refuses to reward 

 the labor spent on it, and is hopelessly 

 sterile. 



xVncient as well as modern agriculture, 

 up to a very recent period, has taken little 

 or no account of these facts. It is true that 

 land, when the crops were continually re- 

 moved from it, was observed to become more 

 and more difficult to cultivate, and less and 

 less able to repay by rich harvests the labor 

 applied to it. Countries which produced 

 and exported grain, tobacco, &c., abundantly, 

 became sterile wastes in Europe, Africa, and 

 even on our new continent : but the real 

 cause of this serious injury was not fully 

 studied or understood. Some virtue of the 

 soil had departed — the land was sick — but 

 no great physician told the impoverished 

 farmer how to restore his exhausted fields. 

 Yet something might have been learned by 

 noting well the fact — that where the land 

 was in the hands of small holders, who ex- 

 ported nothing, but consumed the products 

 of their little farms on the soil which pro- 

 duced them, and thus unwittingly restored 

 to it the mineral elements which had been 

 taken from it by the crops — this exhaustion 

 did not take place in a proportionate de- 

 gree. In this manner the productiveness 

 of the densely populated land in China is 

 preserved, where the excretions of men 

 and animals are regularly preserved, made 

 articles of commerce, and restored to the 

 soil : — because these excretions, solid and 

 fluid, really contain these mineral elements 

 which had been taken from the land in the 

 vegetable or animal products which consti- 

 tuted their food. 



But in countries where a large extent of 

 territorj^ is annually laid under contribution 

 to supply great communities in large cities, 

 and but a small proportion of the excreta 

 is ever carried back again to the soil, most 

 of it being lost in the drains and sewers, 

 this deterioration of the soil is very evident 

 and lamentable. Thus was it that ancient 

 Rome made sterile the Campana and large 

 tracts of fertile land in Sardinia, Sicily, and 

 on the coast of Africa; and thus, in modern 

 times, when railroad and canal facilities 

 cause agricultural products to be carried 

 thousands of miles from the place where 



