THE FOOD OF VEGETABLES. 



23 



a condition of vital importance. They must be soluble, ready for 

 use when needed, or they may as well not be there so far as 

 regards the immediate crop. 



2. " With every crop a portion of these ingredients are re- 

 moved. A part of this portion is again added from the inex- 

 haustible store of the atmosphere ; another part, however, is 

 lost for ever if not replaced by man." Those are fundamental 

 truths, and with them is incorporated the responsibility of 

 cultivators. The atmospheric food referred to is of enormous 

 importance. This will be apparent when the fact is grasped by 

 all, as it is by many, that more than ninety out of every hundred 

 parts of vegetables is derived from the air, or, in other words, 

 ninety per cent, of the food of crops is derived from the air under 

 favourable conditions in the form of rain and gases that act as 

 solvents of the matter locked up in the soil. The earth must be 

 filled, so to say, with air ; but it must be moist, or it will be use- 

 less. And here we see the importance of tillage and drainage ; 

 because, if water cannot percolate through the soil, air cannot 

 enter to warm it and render the food therein available. Warmth 

 represents life and growth ; cold, death and stagnation ; and it is 

 utterly useless — indeed worse, because wasteful — placing manure 

 in water-logged land. Some soils are too light and porous, 

 needing additions of heavier to increase their retentiveness, 

 otherwise the air in them would be dry and of no service ; others 

 may be too close, and need opening material for the admission of 

 air ; but no matter the texture of soil, whether sandy or clayey, 

 if it is water-logged it is cold, inert, even poisonous ; and the 

 sun cannot increase its temperature till the excess of water is 

 evaporated, any more than water with a lump of ice in it can be 

 warmed over a fire till the ice is melted. The cultivator, there- 

 fore, for making the most of the virtues of the atmosphere and 

 manure, must have the soil in the best condition for their absorp- 

 tion and retention, stirring, hoeing, or mulching, as may be in 

 turn required. Then, and not till then, can the mineral ingre- 

 dients already in the soil, or which may be added to it in the form 

 of manure, be appropriated by the crops under cultivation. 



Depriving the land of the labour that is requisite for the 

 maintenance of its fertility is a gigantic mistake ; and I can give 

 a striking instance of the hoe, timely and properly used, being a 

 creator of wealth, but must go out of the garden for it. Three 



