September i, 1881.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
275 
to ,be tried over and over again by other experi- 
menters, and in a great many different soils and places, 
ere it is likely to be generally accepted as "proven." 
Probably the grand scope of the issue laid open by 
Mr. Lawes will be best understood by quoting a 
h. ho makes to M. Yille, the celebrated 
iculturist chemist, which i« to be found 
replj 
Pren 
VillL-, 
III 
dish b 
translated in 
that crops always yield n 
plied in the manure, and 
not from the soil, bu 
leguminous plnnts, and p; 
beans, clover, mid lucerne, 
whole of their nitrogen fro 
such as beetroot and colza 
to 1)0 supplied by manure 
but that after tbia 
atmosphere. In r 
growtl 
from t 
ply 
due 
have draw i 
those put f 
those relati 
leguminous; 
of nitrogen s 
—whether a 
or that absc 
but a very 
assimilate ; 
practically 
it is a qnes 
more may n 
is supplied 
This is k 
gho all tin 
in the nossil 
.supplies 
isions I 
art with 
specially 
i of the 
Dltl 
who fo 
autumn 
|,with tl 
known to b 
be attracted and 
body knows that 
amount of good, 
■elding much bei 
the sou by m 
to the lhorou< 
b, bv continuous 
total amount they 
If (or manure) is 
r supply. Indeed, 
laud, as much or 
or otherwise than 
mly for those 
ervent belief 
quantities of 
ins of broad- 
. cultivators, 
steam tillage, 
□fes, together 
rougli furrow 
o salutary, a 
equire to 
fl up very 
beforehand, the treasures of which only 
be unlocked by a skilful hand to be rende 
freely. The theory which Mr. Lawes ii 
simply this : that all soils have been furnished more 
or lcs.-i with latent nitrogen, owing to the ages they 
remained in a state of primeval wildness, bearing 
Vegetation of some kind which, after coming to maturi- 
ty, decayed on their surfaces, to form mould and 
be i , orporated as legacies for the future. The popular 
Wei, no doubt, ie that except in vales, alluvial soils, 
and those of well-known natural fertility, a large 
proportion of this original endowment of nitrogen has 
. nince been exhausted; but Mr. Lawes says this 
is not »o. and lie oil' is facts to prove his case. Ad- 
joining tho liothametcd trial fields is a pbco of 
penmitieii pasture, which he has analysed, and finds 
that, after removing all vegetable matter, the first 
PBM i dies til" tho finely sifted mould contain .".,700 lb. 
of nitlM.en »»t acre, while tile tee. unl nine inches 
contain 'J,."00 lb more. 
Tin? adjoining arable field, which has never been 
renumber.,! in pasture, has been experimented on 
since 1 S40. and Mr. Lawes belie vs that it posses jed 
at that time about .'5,000 1b. <«(" nitr g n »'i the But 
nino inohes, and between 2,1001b. and '.'00 lb. in 
the second nine inches. Since that period this field 
has erown thirty-eight successive crops of wheat, aod 
certain portions of it have been totally unmatured 
during the whole forty years. Under the latter cir- 
cumstance Mr. Lawes estimates the loss of nitrogen 
from the soil at from l,U001b. to 1,200 lb. per acre ; 
so that, although he has been drawing continually on 
the stock of nitrogen on the soil for forty years, 
without adding any to it, triers is still a considerable 
residuum to draw upon remaining. 
If there are no loopholes for error in these deduc- 
tions, or a possibility that much more nitrogen may 
come from the atmospheie, even to the liothamstcd 
unmannred wheat plots, than Mr. Lawes supposes, he 
certainly advances evidence in the above that there 
is nitrogen remaining latent, even in comparatively 
poor soils, in rather large quantities. Neither is it 
very difficult to understand by this theory why steam 
tillage, autumn cultivation, winter and summer fal- 
lows, lining, &c,, always occasion such heavy crops. 
The soil, by being aeriticd and atomised, yields up its 
latent nitrogen, which is converted into nitric acid 
by the fermenting influences whith are occasioned. 
Even the fact of the Rev. S. Smith having grown his 
splendid crops of wheat thirty-three years in succes- 
sion without manure, but by spade-dug, well-stirred 
intervals, becomes explicable without entertaining the 
idea that a single particle of the manure came from 
the atmosphere. But what a startling conclusion are 
we compelled to come to after all this ; for, if Mr. 
Lawes be in the right, greater inroads must have been 
made into the pro-existent stock of nitrogen in the 
soil the more these forces and influences have been 
applied ; and it amounts to this, that the best and 
most assiduous cultivators must be the worst for land- 
lords' interests, because they exhaust in greatest degree 
the stores of land fertility, which, as alleged, are of 
so much cousequence ; and, reasoning thus, we must 
also accept the logical outcome that bad farming ex- 
hausts laud far less than good. 
The conclusions of Mr. Lawes seem also to fix us 
on the horns of a dilemma in another matter. He 
alludes, in the concluding part of the sentence quoted 
above, to the losses of nitrogen arable soils sustain 
by drainage 
much or mr 
ceive from t 
ifluences, and says it is as 
with the quantities they re- 
i. But if the nitrogen com- 
ixes is washed out again to 
be the free nitrogen, which 
shape of manure, or by 
il food : and if such a factor 
very materially the validity of tenant farmers' claims 
for compensation when they have employed largely 
either artificial manures or artificial foods for stock, 
in all cases in which nitrogen is supposed to be the 
chief legacy imparted. Mr. Lawes, in the early part 
of his pamphlet has the following passage: — "As the 
claims of tenants for unexhausted fertility are bacom- 
ing more and more recognised, the time Keeins to 
havo come when some effort should be made to draw 
the line between the natural fertility inherent in our 
soils, which is given in exchange for rent, and tho 
additional fertility which tho tenant brings upon the 
land at his option, but cannot altogether remove." 
This is, perhaps, a somewhat unhappy pretext to make 
for the inquiry, inasmuch as the whole of tho logic 
and facts adduced by Mr. tawt-s tend to the conclu- 
sion that, the grand sourco of fertility lies latent iu 
the soil ; and, judging solely by what the pamphlet 
contains, one would scarcely suppose it possible that 
tho most industrious and enterprising occupiers could 
contribute to it to any very valuable extent. In 
one placo ho says:— "Largo as the amount of im- 
posed cattlo food may appear, it will bu found that 
its consumption is confined to a comparatively limited 
area, and that it has but littlu influence on the gener- 
al fertility of the country at large. As a proof of 
