872 
Fatyning ivithoiit LivB-stoch. 
organic matter to the soil, its presence being indispensable to the 
due maintenance of the physical properties of the latter. As a 
matter of fact, it is supplied either in the form of crop residues left 
in the land, or of c/reen manures. To a certain extent, lime is 
competent to bring into activity the products of decomposition of 
organic matter. 
The system of cultivation, based upon sideration and the em- 
ployment of chemical manures, has passed beyond the tentative 
stage, for it has been attended with full success in the case of 
Schultz of Lupitz and his many imitators. 
Let us pass now from the domain of theory to that of practice, 
and learn what are the plants that may be utilised as green manures 
upon light soils. Their function, it will be understood, is to ob- 
tain for the soil those ingredients whicli are most lacking — nitrogen 
and humus. 
The hrst place belongs to the lupin. It will grow almost any- 
where, even upon calcareous soils, and upon fields freshly dressed with 
marl. It is cultivated both as forage and as a catch crop. Hitherto 
the yellow-flowered lupin has been preferred by agriculturists, 
but, according to the recent experiments of Schirmer of Neuhaus, the 
white-flowered lupin is the more advantageous to use. 
The kidney vetch, or ladies' fingers {Anthyllis vulneraria, L.) 
"works wonders " upon light soils well marled, and already 
moderately supplied with nitrogen and phosphoric acid. 
One of the vetches, Yicia villosa, has yielded the best results 
upon the farm at Neuhaus. 
Serradella (Ornithojms sativus) is also capable of rendering 
great service, provided it is allowed time in which to establish itself. 
The microbes discovered by Hellriegel, which give rise upon the 
roots to the minute nodules "in which the atmospheric nitrogen is 
transformed into protoplasm," are rarely present, at the commence- 
ment of growth, in sufficient numbers. It is possible, however, to 
inoculate the soil by means of samples of earth obtained from a 
field where serradella has already been s;;.ccessfully grown. Such 
inoculation ought to be regarded as a necessary preliminary in 
every new cultivation of leguminous plant". Failure in the 
practice of sideration is often to be attributed to the absence of 
these microbes. 
Species of Lathyrus (meadow vetchling) are likewise capible of 
playing an important role. 
The various plants that have been enumerated furnish, in the 
process of catch -cropping — independently of the root and stubble 
residues, which may be estimated to form one-third of the weight of 
the entire crop — a yield in dry matter varying from 2,500 to 5,000 
kilogrammes, whilst dung, even at the rate of 10,000 kilogrammes 
per hectare annually,' does not furnish the soil with more than 
2,000 kilogrammes of organic matter. 
' 1 kilogramme = 2 2 lb. ; 1 hectare = about 2\ acres. In the figures 
given, however, it is the proportion$, and not the actual quantities, that are 
significant. 
