Some  Secondartf  Actions  of  Manures  upon  the  Soil.  13 
being  brought  to  the  service  of  agriculture  ; above  all  things, 
both  the  leaders  and  the  workers  had  abundant  faith  in  the 
value  of  knowledge  and  in  the  future  of  their  industry  which, 
at  the  same  time,  was  blessed  by  a number  of  men  who  could 
write  vividly  upon  their  work.  It  is  not  my  purpose,  however, 
to  discuss  the  writings  of  Philip  Pusey,  Daubeny,  Buckman, 
Morton,  Curtis,  C.  S.  Read,  and  others,  which  illuminate  those 
early  volumes,  but  to  call  attention  once  again  to  one  of  the 
most  interesting  of  all  of  the  papers  therein  contained,  a paper 
by  J.  T.  Way  on  the  power  of  soils  to  absorb  manure  (First 
Series,  Vol.  xi.,  1850,  p.  313),  which  is  one  of  the  classics  of 
agricultural  science. 
Way,  it  should  be'  remembered,  was  the  second  Chemist 
appointed  by  the  Society,  succeeding  Lyon  Playfair,  afterwards 
Lord  Playfair,  in  184:7  ; he  did  much  valuable  pioneer  work  in 
agricultural  chemisti-y  up  to  the  time  of  his  resignation  in  1857, 
whereupon  the  late  Dr.  A.  Voelcker  was  appointed  to  the  post 
which  is  still  held  by  his  son.  Way’s  work  on  the  absorption 
of  manures  by  the  soil  arose  out  of  some  observations  by  a 
Mr.  H.  S.  Thompson  which  are  set  out  in  an  earlier  paper  in 
the  same  volume  ; he  found  that  if  liquid  manure  was  liltered . 
through  a layer  of  ordinary  soil  it  appeared  as  a clear  and  in- 
offensive liquid,  from  which  all  the  organic  and  ammoniacal 
compounds  had  been  withdrawn.  Even  pure  ammonium  salts 
are  equally  taken  away  from  their  solutions  when  they  are 
filtered  through  soil,  and  it  was  this  class  of  action  which  Way  in- 
vestigated in  detail,  the  results  being  set  out  in  the  paper  quoted 
and  in  a second  one  in  the  Journal  two  years  later,  and  again 
in  some  further  papers  in  which  Dr.  Voelcker  continued  Way's 
studies  after  the  resignation  of  the  latter  chemist.  Now  from 
the  practical  point  of  view,  the  important  thing  that  Way  dis- 
covered was  the  fact  that  nearly  all  the  soluble  fertilisers,  the  use 
of  which  was  then  becoming  general,  could  be  applied  to  the  soil 
without  any  risk  of  their  washing  out,  because  they  immedi- 
ately became  precipitated  or  otherwise  fixed  in  the  soil.  Nitrates 
are  not  retained  but  sulphate  and  other  salts  of  ammonia  enter 
into  some  combination  with  the  soil  constitnents  which  with- 
draws the  ammonia  from  solution,  though  the  acid  part  passes 
on  into  the  drains  or  the  subsoil  in  combination  with  lime  or 
a similar  base  ; soluble  phosphates  like  superphosphate  are 
immediately  precipitated,  while  solul^le  potash  salts  are  taken 
out  of  solution  by  a reaction  akin  to  that  which  retains  the 
ammonium  salts.  Since  that  time  the  work  has  been  extended 
and  completed  in  various  directions  and  we  now  know  that  on 
ordinary  land  we  need  not  fear  the  loss  of  any  fertilising 
constituents,  except  of  nitoates  and  the  compounds  of  nitrogen 
which  rapidly  change  into  nitrates. 
