810 = 544 Influence of Chemical Discoveries on 
stituents of manure), and the highly important investigatioi 
of Professor Way on this subject, have had a direct and ben 
ficial influence on practical agriculture, more especially in rel 
tion to the rational treatment and the application of farm-yai 
manure, and the economical application of artificial manures. 
Professor Way's painstaking and highly valuable investigatioi 
have shown that manuring matters in contact with soils underj 
remarkable changes, and fully justify the statement that plan 
do not take up mineral food in the simple state of solution : 
which we add it to the soil in the shape of manure, but in total 
different states of combination. The publication of ProfesS' 
Way's researches on the absorbing properties of soils has given 
new direction to the chemical investigations of soils, and this fie! 
of inquiry has been successfully cultivated on the Continen 
especially in Germany, by Liebig, Knop, Henneberg, Stohma; 
Brustlein, Peters, and other chemists. In England, invest 
gations on the same subject have been made by Mr. Waringtc 
and by myself. The results of my investigations ai'e recorded ; 
the pages of the ' Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society ' i 
a series of papers "On the Chemical Properties of Soils;" "0 
the Absorption of Potash and its Salts by soils of known con 
position ;" " On the functions of Soda-salts in Agriculture 
and " On the absorption of Soluble Phosphate of Lime ; ar 
Phosphatic Manures for Root Crops." 
Variableness of These several investigations have shown that the property 
their retentive absorbing, retaining, and modifying the composition of manur 
belongs to every soil, and that some soils possess this power 
a much higher degree than others. They have much increas( 
our knowledge of the inherent capacity of soils to work up, : 
to speak, the crude fertilising matters into new combinations ; 
allow the free percolation of other — it may be less needful- 
substances ; and to provide for a constant supply of food whi( 
is neither so soluble as to injure the growing plant, nor 
insoluble as to remain inactive. It is therefore reasonable 
connect in a great measure the agricultural capabilities of soi 
with their power of retaining certain fertilising matters wi 
avidity, and of modifying others in a most interesting and, unl 
recently, unexpected manner. 
Absorption of Respecting the absorption of ammonia and its salts by vario 
soils, the following points taken from the summary appended 
my paper " On the Chemical Properties of Soils," published 
June 1860, in the ' Journal of the Royal Agricultural Societ; 
well show the bearing of these researches on the application 
manures. 
1. All soils experimented upon had the power of absorbii 
ammonia from its solution in water. 
powers. 
ammonia. 
