on Permanent Meadoio Land. 
507 
given in our paper in the last Number of the Journal do show, 
however, that the description of plants developed has, in most 
cases, been much changed, and in some deteriorated, under the 
which distinctly disproves the truth of the allegation in support of -which the 
professed quotation is brought forward ! Having thus moulded Mr. Lawes's sen- 
tence to suit the requirements of his argument, he goes on to say : — 
" From this doctrine of the practical man it necessarily followed that a mineral 
manure must be one which contained only the ash-constituents of vegetable pro- 
ducts, and from the composition of which ammonia-salts, as belonging to organic 
manures, are excluded. To be sure, in every chemical manual ammonia and its 
salts are treated of among inorganic substances, since they are objects of chemical 
manufacture, whilst organic matters cannot be produced by man ; and this fact 
might well have led to the suspicion that ammonia was not necessarily excluded 
from an inorganic manure. The agricultural chemistry of the practical man was 
evidently a peculiar chemistry, which had no connexion with ordinary chemistry, 
and thus Ms theory might well find some justification, but according to my theory 
I obviously took another point of view. Mr. Lawes, indeed, mentions in his paper 
(p. 21), that my manures smelt of ammonia, and hence contained an ammonia- 
salt ; but he implied that this might be a little artifice, in order to give to my 
manures an efficacy which, according to his interpretation of my theory, they 
should not possess." — [Translation.] 
The following quotations, taken from several of Baron Liebig's works, will 
show whether he has not been accustomed to use the terms " mineral " or 
" inorganic " to designate the incombustible or ash-constituents, and to distinguish 
these from " ammonia," " ammoniacal salts," " atmospheric constituents," &c. 
The italicising is our own : — 
" The mineral constituents act, as is shown by the produce of the unmanured 
land, without any artificial supply of ammonia." 
" The ammonia increases the produce only if the mineral constituents be present 
in the soil in due quantity, and in an availahl? form. « 
" Ammonia is without efiect if the mineral constituents are wanting. Conse 
qnently, the action of ammonia is limited to the acceleration of the action of the 
mineral constituents in a given time." — Principles, pp. 86-7 (1855). 
" . the other is the action of sulphate of ammonia as a solvent for 
certain important mineral constituents of the soil." — lb., p. 99 (1855). 
" Ammonia, when used as a manure alone, and when there is a want of mineral 
■constituents in the soil, is like the spirits which the labourer takes in order to 
increase his available labour, power, or imagination ; and, like that stimulant, its 
action, in this case, is followed by a corresponding exhaustion." — lb., p. 106 (1855). 
" Hence it is quite certain that in our fields the amount of nitrogen in the 
crops is not at all in proportion to the quantity supplied in the manure, and that 
the soil cannot be exhausted by the exportation of products containing nitrogen 
(unless these products contain at the same time a large amount of mineral ingre- 
■dients), because the nitrogen of vegetation is furnished by the atmosphere, and not 
by the soil. Hence also we cannot augment the fertility of our fields, or their 
powers of production, by supplying them with manures rich in nitrogen, or with 
ammonia salts alone. The crops on a field diminish or increase in exact proportion 
to the diminution or increase of the mineral substances conveyed to it in manure." 
— 4th Edition, p. 210 (184 7?). 
" But, at the same time, it is of great importance for agriculture to know with 
certainty that the supply of ammonia is unnecessary for most of our cultivated 
plants, and that it may be even superfluous, if only the soil contain a sufficient 
supply of the mineral food of plants, when the ammonia required for their develop- 
ment will be furnished by the atmosphere."— 4th Edition, p. 212 (21.3). 
" A fertile soil must contain in sufficient quantity, and in a form adapted for 
assimilation, all the inorganic materials indispensable for the growth of plants. 
" A field artificially prepared for culture contains a certain amount of these 
ingredients, and uUo of ammoniacal salts and decaying vegetable matter." — 
4th Edition, p. 169. 
" The meaning of these sentences in my work is this : ' that ammoniacal sails 
