the Makiiu/ of Cider and Fern/, 
395 
of bearinjT apples. It has been observed before, that mails, be- 
sides carbonate of lime, contain also potash and sulphate and 
phosphate of lime. Lime and peat-ashos generally contain more 
or less of the same substances, and in applying them to soils 
which do not contain them, or in which they are defective in 
quantity, we only supply the deficiency of nature. Every farmer 
knows that no soil can be productive without a jdentiful supply of 
water; but those principles or substances which water conveys to 
plants, and which are equally essential to then' existence, have 
hitherto, for the most part, as separate substances, escaped his 
observation, obscui'ed as they are in the general mass of manures 
which he conveys to his fields. The fertilising effect of certain 
salts, which constitute only a part of this manure, and which till 
lately were never thought of as forming a necessary part of the 
food of plants, has awakened that spirit of inquiry which promises 
to lead, at no distant time, to a knowledge not only of the cause of 
the fertility and barrenness of land, generally speaking, but also to 
a more e.\act knowledge of the peculiar adaptation of certain soils 
to particular plants : in other words, the true reason why any 
particular plant will thrive in one soil, and not in another. That 
most ingenious and thoroughly practical people the Chinese have 
long since experimentally discovered the means of adapting their 
soils to the plants they wish to cultivate upon them, and provide 
the proper manure for each particular plant. We have much, 
therefore, to learn in this particular, at least, from a people whom 
we have been accustomed to regard as semi-barbarians — as, in- 
deed, in some respects they are. Science has recently opened to 
Europeans a shorter and surer way of gaining knowledge of this 
kind, or at least affords them a guiding light by which to conduct 
their e.^periments, in the exact analyses which may now be 
obtained of plants, and of the soils upon which they grow and 
prosper. 
These observations upon the artificial adaptation of the soils to 
the growth of apple-trees are merely thrown out as suggestions. 
There are, however, many analogous facts in the experience of 
agriculturists which are calculated to render them worthy of con- 
sideration. Clovers cannot be grown upon many soils without the 
application of ashes ; and the produce both of turnips and wheat 
has been greatly increased by the application of bone-dust and 
other manures of a mineral character. Large tracts of countiy, 
once thought incapable of producing corn of any kind, have been 
made, by the application of proper manures and skilful manage- 
ment, to contribute millions of quarters to the general stock; and 
yet we are perhaps only arrived at the threshold of improvement 
in this department of agriculture. 
When young trees have been carefully planted and well-fenced. 
