552 
On the Fairy-rimjs of Pastures. 
on the same spot again ; but upon the death of the first tlie ground be- 
comes occupied by a vigorous crop of grass, rising, like a phoenix, on 
the ashes of its predecessor. 
If the grass shared the fate of the agaric, withering and dying on the 
land, its growtli might continue, the circle might increase and remain 
as before supposed m the shape of a disc ; but in practice this does not 
occur — the grass is either eaten off by cattle or taken away in the form 
of hay, and with it is removed the greater part of the inorganic materials 
which the fungus had collected. The ring may in the same spot remain 
in a better condition than the surrounding herbage for a second year, 
but after that it returns to its former condition, if indeed the exhausted 
state of the land will allow of even thus much. 
The nitrogen of the fungus must not of course be left out in consi- 
dering the manuring influence which this substance exerts upon the 
land, but I cannot help believing that it is to the inorganic elements 
that the effect is chiefly to be ascribed. 
An experiment was made of spreading some fungi on the grass of the 
pasture where the rings occur ; the letters in the form of which the 
fungi were arranged were clearly visible a month afterwards. If it be 
asked how comes the fungus to become such a collector of inorganic 
ingredients of a valuable nature, and why cannot the grass obtain for 
itself those substances which the soil can clearly furnish, I would say 
that I suppose this to be dependent on the peculiar structure and habits 
of these agarics. The cellular form of their vessels plainly enables 
them to abstract nourishment from the air at a prodigiously rapid rate ; 
some of them, as the ordinary mushroom, growing to a large size in one 
night. And I can quite conceive it possible that the possession of this 
extraordinary power of organic assimilation would give a superior energy 
of vitality to the plant, and enable it more readily and quickly to obtain 
from the soil those mineral ingredients which its development requires. 
Another circumstance which would have a material influence in this 
particular is the quantity of water which circulates through such plants, 
and which would come to them loaded with the soluble substances of 
the sod. 
The subject is a trifling one in itself, and more a matter of curiosity 
than of practical importance; but its notice may prove of service if it 
should deepen the conviction • in the minds of agriculturists of the 
necessity and value of iworganic manuring. 
Here is a case of a luxuriant vegetation, caused chiefly, as I believe, 
■although indirectly, by a mineral manure suited to the necessities of the 
particular crop which it has benefited. 
To understand as we shall, it is to be hoped, one day the true system 
of inorganic manuring, we must be possessed of the requirements of all 
the ditt'crent crops which are cultivated. Nothing short of this will 
remove from the science of chemistry the imputation which at present 
is too commonly cast upon it, of being comparatively valueless to the 
practical farmer. 
Ayricidliiral Collrqc, Cirencester, 
iiept. Slh, IS46. 
