64 
Report on Messrs. Prout and MiddleditclC s 
demonstrate that, in the long run, more cannot be extracted 
from the land than is put into it ; and to secure to the skilful 
responsible tenant the liberty to plant what he pleases, unless 
during the two years previous to his leaving, provided always 
he keeps his land clean and grows good crops. 
Some landlords and tenants may, perhaps, be sceptical as to 
the fertilising powers of thorough cultivation and portable ma- 
nures — the two chief factors by which the fertility of these farms 
has been improved and maintained. But thorough cultivation 
ensures the free entrance of sunlight, air, and moisture into the 
soil, and thus ameliorates and renders more soluble and fit for 
plant-food the crude materials which abound especially in stub- 
born clays. Again, artificial manures must not be regarded, as 
they still often are, as " stimulants " to be used sparingly and 
occasionally, but eventually leading to serious exhaustion of the 
soil. Judiciously applied, they supply directly to the growing 
plant the materials with which its textures are built up, whilst 
they sometimes render available certain constituents of the soil 
which otherwise could not be taken up by plants. Farm crops 
are not capricious as to their food. They cheerfully elaborate 
their grains and roots froiji any convenient sources of plant-food. 
It is comparatively immaterial whether the elements of plant- 
nutrition be of home or foreign origin, whether they enter the 
soil in concentrated or bulky form, whether they come directly 
from the fold-yard or from antediluvian stores. The essential 
matter is that they be, in quantity and variety, sufficient for the 
demands of the plant, and presented in a moderately soluble 
state. The phosphatic and ammoniacal dressings regularly used 
at Blount's Farm and Blunsdon present about a fair equivalent 
for the phosphates and albuminoids annually removed in the 
crops. From the soil and atmosphere the other materials requisite 
are readily obtained. 
Messrs. Lawes and Gilbert's invaluable experiments — one of 
the chief store-houses of the reliable facts of scientific agricul- 
ture — demonstrate that on heavy land the maximum returns both 
of wheat and barley have been reached with portable manures, 
and that on an average of twenty-five years dissolved bones and 
nitrate of soda, to the value of about GOs. per acre, produced 
several bushels more than an annual dressing of l-i tons of good 
farmyard-manure.* 
But it has been urged that fertility resulting from the use of 
artificials must be ephemeral. The Commissioners of the Royal 
Agricultural Society, reporting on Steam Cultivation in 1866 
• 'Journal of the Boyal Agricultural Society,' vol. xxv., and vol. ix., 2nd 
Series. 
