MANURES 85 



bones crushed, bones powdered, bones dissolved with 

 sulphuric and muriatic acid, as Liebig bade ; and I 

 have a very high admiration of the bone as a most 

 sure and fertilising manure. For agricultural pur- 

 poses, for turnips, for grass recently laid down, or for 

 a starved, exhausted pasture, whereupon you may 

 write your name with it; and in horticulture, for the 

 lighter soils, for the vine-border, for plants (the 

 Pelargonium especially), it is excellent ; but in the 

 Rosary, although a magnum (I feel in writing the 

 pun like the little boy who chalked ' No Popery ^ on 

 Dr Wiseman's door, half ashamed of the deed, and 

 desirous to run), it is not the summum bonum of 

 manures. 



Nor up the chimney — though, for Roses on the 



Manetti stock, and for Tea-Roses, soot is good 



manure, and useful as a surface-dressing for hot 



dry soils. Nor among the autumn leaves, although 



these also, decayed to mould and mixed with the 



soil, are very advantageous; and sure and great is 



the reviving power, which gives back to the ground, 



according to the gracious law of Providence, the 



strength which was borrowed from it ; when 



* The world of matter, in its various forms, 

 All dies into new life — life out of death.' 



Nor, crossing the seas, among those bird-islands of 

 Peru, Bolivia, Patagonia, in which— barren, rainless, 



