460 
Agricultural Chemistry. 
" The latter manure is the form -^vliich is found to produce the greatest 
effect upon the young plant, and especially upon the development of a large 
amount of fibrous roots It must, however, he clearly vndersfood 
that the hulk of an agricultural crop of turnips depends materially upmi the 
amount of organic matter contained in the soil, without which the development 
of the power of yroivth hy means of the 2'hosphate ivill he unavailing 
Mapc-cake, as containing a large amount of organic mutter, is an admirahle 
manure for the turnip as a suhstitute for farm-yard dung." — Jour. Boy. Agr. 
Soc. Eng., vol. viii. part 2, pji. 562-3. 
We cannot now stop to point out various little discrepancies 
in Baron Liebig's professed quotations of figures ; but there is 
one result, which he sajs is " still more incomprehensible," to 
which we must call attention. In this particular instance, we 
cannot entirely blame Baron Liebig, for it is a misprint in our 
own paper, that has supplied him with the strong point of his 
case ; though, the evidence respecting the same experiment 
given in the immediately succeeding tables, would have saved 
any careful critic, from the blunder into which he has been 
led by the misprint. He quotes a plot manured with g^-psum 
and rape-cake in 1845, and apparently yielding 18 tons 1 cwt. 
of turnips. Now it so happens, that in our paper, we spoke 
of the produce of the farm-yard manure of that year, which 
Avas 17 tons, as the highest in the entire series of the experi- 
ments. This certainly ought to have raised some doubt as 
to the correctness of the figures in question. The fact is, 
that instead of 18 tons 1 cwt. the produce was only 10 tons 
1 cwt. ; and this was shown by the relation of the average weight 
of bulbs and number of plants per acre, and by that of the acreage 
produce of leaf, and the proportion of the latter to 1000 of bulb, 
as given in the tables which immediately succeeded. 
To say nothing of minor discrepancies which also appear, the 
following is the curious contrast which we obtain, between Baron 
Liebig's comment, and that which is really consistent with 
the facts of the case. In the left-hand column is given Baron 
Liebig's comment, founded on the misprint ; and in the right- 
hand one, the comparison is shown as it icould be, according to 
the corrected fi<rures. The italics are g-iven to indicate the dif- 
ferences between the parallel passages in the two cases. 
Principles, p. 127-8. Amended Comparison. 
" In 1845, another lot of equal size. In 1845, another lot of equal size, 
manured with 12 cwt. of gypsum manured with 12 cwt. of gypsum 
(the residue of the manufacture of (the residue of the manufacture of 
tartaric acid), and 10 cwt. of rape- tartaric acid), and 10 cwt. of rape- 
cake, yielded 18 tons 1 cn-t. of tur- cake, yielded 10 tons 1 ciot. of tur- 
nips, that is, 6 tons more than the nips, that is, 3 tons If cict. less than 
highest produce (12 tons) of the land the highest produce (13 tons 2f cwt.) 
least, and we could in others, that 'Proposition 14' is not the only one, which 
records an advance upon Baron Liebig's previous views. 
