40 



only is such a soil dry and compact, but it abounds in micro-* 

 scopic animalculse. Ehrenberg has discovered that the mud 

 of the various harbours in .Europe is composed to the extent 

 of from one-third to one-half of its volume of distinguishable 

 organic bodies, chiefly polythalamia, from the nitrogen of 

 which no doubt these soils derive their fertility. 



The cause of the failure of red and white clover after 

 harvest being ascertained, the remedy is easily prescribed, 

 for farmers have many ways of imparting compactness to the 

 soil, namely, by rolling and pressing the surface, by clay- 

 ing, chalking, and lining with caustic lime. I should say,-— 

 Lime the clover ley when broken up for wheat, press the 

 wheat, and also press the soil for barley; and after harvest 

 before November, roll the barley with a heavy roller ; and 

 the probability is that we shall hear no more of clover-sick 

 lands : at all events, the remote and proximate causes of the 

 disease being discovered, I leave the remedy to the farmer. 



Agriculture, as a science, has been for a long period in 

 the same state in which the healing art was in the days of 

 the celebrated barber-surgeon Pare — a system of empiricism 

 — a few recipes applied indiscriminately to all cases under 

 all circumstances, without any pathological knowledge of the 

 morbid tissues or fluids of the organism to which the remedy 

 was to be applied. But a brighter day is beaming ; the sun 

 is already above the horizon. If there arose for the ad*- 

 vancement of medicine a Harvey who discovered the circu- 

 lation of the blood, there has now sprung up for the advance- 

 ment of agriculture a Liebig, who has discovered how pimply 

 the Great Creator forms that blood from the sap of veget- 

 ables — in what manner it conveys heat to every part of the 

 body^ — from whence it derives its nutrient particles, and 

 which must be given to animals in those vegetables which 

 contain them, according as the animal is intended to be kept 

 lean or fat. If for medicine Bechat and Baillie observed 



