On the Application of Manures. 



239 



Guicciardinij to not more than two millions, whereas at present it 

 probably exceeds fourteen ; yet there is no question but that the 

 present inhabitants are better fed than were their ancestors, al- 

 though it can hardly be supposed that the quantity of land now 

 in cultivation exceeds seven times that which had already been 

 brought under tillage in the year 1600."^ 



Something indeed must be allowed for the amount of corn in- 

 troduced into England from foreign countries, which in 1831 (in 

 which year a larger quantity had been imported than at any 

 period before or subsequent) was estimated at 3,541^809 quarters, 

 being less than one- fourteenth of the whole quantity consumed in 

 the United Kingdom.f But even with this deduction there will 

 remain a sufficient overplus to evince the greater productiveness 

 of the soil under its present management than under that of our 

 ancestors. 



Let us not, however, indulge too much in a feeling of self-satis- 

 faction when contemplating our proficiency in the art of hus- 

 bandry, for considerable as the advances may be which have 

 been made from the first rude efforts of the earliest occupants of 

 the soil, yet still greater, it may be suspected, is the distance 

 which separates us from that ideal goal, towards which the efforts 

 of the agriculturist ought to be directed, at which empiricism 

 would give place to principle, and theory direct with ease and 

 certainty the operations of the husbandman. 



As there is no profession," says Liebig, J which can be 

 compared in importance to that of agriculture, so there is none 

 in which the application of correct principle would be productive 

 of more beneficial effects. Hence it appears quite unaccountable 

 that we may vainly search for a single leading principle relative to 

 this subject in all the writings of agriculture and of vegetable 

 physiologists." 



" The methods employed in the cultivation of land are different 

 in every country and in every district ; and when we inquire the 

 causes of these differences the answer we receive is, that they de- 

 pend upon circumstances (les cir Constances font les assolements). 

 No answer could show ignorance more plainly, since no one has 

 ever troubled himself to ascertain what these circumstances are. 

 Thus also, when we inquire in what manner manure acts, we are 

 answered by the most intelligent men, that its action is covered 

 by the veil of I sis ; and when we further demand what this 

 means, we discover merely that the excrements of man and ani- 

 mals are supposed to contain an incomprehensible something 



* See Appendix. t See MaccuUoch's Coram. Diet., p. 417. 



+ Organic Chemistry in its Applications to Agriculture, p. 138. 



