Report, of Experiments on the Growth of Wheat. 499 
when available nitrogen is supplied within the soil, are entirely 
unavailing to yield any more than a very immaterial amount of 
increase in the absence of such supply.* 
Very inconsistently, however, with the supposition that want 
of .solubility was the defect of his mineral manure, Baron Liebig 
now maintains that progress in agriculture depends, not as before 
on being able to dispense with a rotation of crops, with nitro- 
genous manures in general, and with farmyard manure in par- 
ticular, and to substitute it by artificial preparations, but upon a 
proper rotation of crops, the successful growth of fodder plants, 
the use of farmyard manure, and the accumulation of nitrogenous 
food within the soil, so very important for the perfect growth 
of the cereals. 
Whilst thus adopting the views Auhich we have maintained 
in opposition to his own for so many years past, and have 
supported by much experimental and other evidence in the 
pages of this Journal, he seeks to convey the impression to his 
readers that we have in reality advocated directly contrary 
opinions — that, in fact, in insisting upon the necessity of an 
accumulation of available nitrogen within the soil for the increased 
growth of the cereals, we assume that the chief source of that 
accumulation should be ammonia purchased from without. In 
illustration of the hopelessness of improvement in agriculture 
under such conditions, he points out how very inadequate are 
the supplies of nitrogen in the form of purchased manure from 
without to any largely increased growth of corn ; a view in 
which we need hardly say we fully concur. 
No doubt the supply of ammonia, or nitrogen in some other 
form, from without, limited as it is, is a very important adjunct 
to that accumulated for the growth of the saleable cereal grains 
by means of rotation, and its associated practices. But we have 
* Notwithstanding Baron Liebig's former ridicule of Professor Way's experi- 
ments, and his subsequent acknowledgment of the importance of his results only 
after it was generally admitted, and when it was found that they were essential 
as the basis of new views of his own, and that they served him to explain his 
previous error (in a manner, however, which is seen to be quite untenable), the 
following are the terms in which that acknowledgment is spoken of by Professor 
Hofmann in his capacity of International Reporter : — 
" The correction of his error by Way, Liebig frankly and unhesitatingly 
accepted. His genius instantly appreciated the value of the English chemist's 
observation ; and shed upon it so bright a light as may be said to have doubled its 
importance. Liebig, in fact, studied the new truth in all its bearings, supplied its 
most generally received interpretation, displayed its momentous consequences, 
elevated it to the rank of a law of nature, and embodied this law as one of the 
corner-stones of his great edifice." 
" Probably, in all Liebig's illustrious career, no incident bears higher testimony 
than this to the vigour and fertility of his intellect, to his undeviating candour, 
and to his disinterested solicitude, on all occasions, for truth and truth alone." 
(Report of International Exhibition of 1862, p. 167.) 
