102 
LIQUID MANURES CHEMICALLY APPLIED. 
These applications of enrichment have become so very fashionable of late, and 
are so highly extolled, that it is scarcely possible to take up a calendar of weekly 
operations where there are not directions for using such and such compounds. 
The subject is really of serious importance, and merits the interference of the philo- 
sophic chemist, to whom it is quite evident that the practice recommended is 
empirical, and in no degree founded upon science. 
Let it not be understood that fluid manure is condemned. "To let well alone," 
and to persist in a line of conduct which, " as the rule," is proved to be beneficial, 
is both justifiable and wise ; the recommendation is yet so general, so indefinite, and so 
frequently guarded by expressions of caution, that something more precise is re- 
quired of those who profess to look into causes. 
Were either the theory or practice confined to the field, or even the kitchen 
garden, we should be unwilling to allude to it, in a work which is primarily devoted 
to floriculture and botany; but we hear and read of the great utility of liquid manures 
when cautiously applied to Azaleas, Camellias, and members of the herbaceous 
tenants of the greenhouse, the plant-house, the stove, and to the whole tribe of 
Geraniums and succulents. But then the question, What is liquid manure ? occurs. 
Some tell us authoritatively, that one of the best forms combines a little sheep- 
dung digested in a volume of water, a portion of coal-soot, and a sprinkling of quick- 
lime, the whole to be intimately stirred and blended together, and suffered to sub- 
side till the floating liquid becomes entirely clear. Another gardener with whom the 
writer had once an interview, observed that he found great benefit from the liquor of 
" Potter's guano ;" but by far the greater number of practical gardeners give the pre- 
ference to the dark brown drainage from farm-yard manure heaps, more or less 
diluted. Not many years since, a veteran in the art wrote us that the soft water 
which percolated through a body of grass turf, (as, for instance, a sloping meadow 
which drained itself into a clean ditch or rill,) contained all the nutritive matters in 
solution which any fruit-bearing or ornamental plant could require. The last 
suggestion is the most wise, and evidently is grounded in wisdom, as we shall now 
attempt to prove, by adducing a few chemical facts in order to controvert the 
erroneous opinions entertained by the many. 
Plants, differing in their generic and specific characters, laborate and assimilate 
food, each according to its specific character ; therefore all and each require food suit- 
able in all respects accordingly. Nothing can be more true than that the three organic 
elements — oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, are common to all ; and it is equally so that 
the fourth element, nitrogen — otherwise called azote — enters into the composition of 
many. It is certain, however, that these four simple elements are susceptible of 
innumerable modifications, combining in proportions so indefinite as to admit of no 
