Agricultural Chemistry — Sheep- Feeding and Manure. 277 



from abroad ; and the investigation which we have in progress has 

 been designed more especially with a view to providing data 

 which may legitimately serve to elucidate these more fundamental 

 practices of an improved agriculture. The more important ques- 

 tions connected with such an inquiry relate — to the conditions re- 

 quired for the growth of wheat and the allied cereal grains, which 

 constitute so material a proportion of the saleable products of the 

 farm, and the nature of the exhaustion resulting from their growth 

 and export — to the growth, and sources of restorative influence, 

 of root-crops — to the growth of the more important agricultural 

 plants of the leguminous family, both those which are cultivated 

 for their seeds, perhaps to be sold off the farm, such as beans, 

 peas, &c., and those, such as clover, trefoil, vetches, &c, which 

 are supposed to be employed in the production of meat and 

 manure — and, to the chemical circumstances involved in the con- 

 sumption of food by animals upon the farm, whether of home or 

 foreign growth. 



With respect to the first two of these branches of the inquiry, 

 we have already laid before the readers of this Journal many of 

 the results of our experiments relating to them, and in the course 

 of their discussion have endeavoured to show their bearings upon 

 the general principles of agriculture, so far as they seemed to be 

 indicated by a consideration of the facts adduced ; and also, to 

 direct attention to the more immediate and direct useful applica- 

 tion of them to such of the details of practical farming as they 

 tended to explain and enforce. Both before and since the publi- 

 cation of our former papers many additional facts relating to the 

 subjects respectively of which they treat have been accumulated, 

 which, when leisure is found to complete and arrange them, we 

 hope to make the subject of future communications. Before 

 doing so, however, it seems desirable to give some account of the 

 results obtained in connexion with the other two branches of the 

 investigation ; and, although neither that relating to the chemical 

 circumstances of the growth, the uses, and the adaptations in a 

 system of alternate cropping, of the leguminous plants, nor that 

 having reference to the consumption of food on the farm as a 

 source of meat and manure, are at present in that state of for- 

 wardness which will admit of so full an application of them as we 

 could wish, yet it is thought that a consideration, especially of 

 those relating to the production- of meat and manure, will add 

 something to the information already at command on the subject, 

 and serve to give an useful direction to the observations and con- 

 ceptions of the intelligent farmer respecting it. 



We propose then, in the present article, to give an account of 

 some carefully conducted experiments, undertaken with the view 

 of ascertaining, what becomes of food when consumed by animals 



