452 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[December, 
Walks and Talks on the Farm— No. 120. 
" I have been looking," said the Deacon, " to 
see what you would say in reply to Col. Waring 
in regard to the injurious effects of summer- 
fallowing. It won't do for you to quietly 
back out of your position. You have been 
arguing for years that stirring the soil made it 
richer ; and now it seems to be proved by the 
experiments of Dr. Voclcker that stirring the 
soil makes it poorer." 
" I know very well what you think, Deacon. 
You think that 'sun-burning' the soil destroys 
the organic matter or manure there is in it. I 
believe I have more than once admitted that 
when land lies baking in the sun for several 
months without its being plowed and worked 
there may be some loss ; but that if it is 
worked enough to kill the weeds and to keep 
the soil mellow and moist there is little or no 
loss on the one hand, while there is a consider- 
able gain on the other hand from rendering 
inert plant-food available." 
"That," replied the Deacon, "is simply the 
old idea that you and I have so often talked 
about. I do not think it is true ; and I was 
very glad to see Col. "Waring produce such 
positive scientific evidence that the sun will 
burn out all the manure from the soil." 
" Don't go too fast, Deacon. I have not seen 
the positive scientific evidence." 
"I will read," said the Deacon, "what Col. 
Waring says. It is very clear and explicit, 
and I do not see how you are going to get 
round it." 
The Deacon put on hisspectaclcs, drew forth 
an old number of the Ayriculturist from, his 
pocket, and read as follows : 
" ' The earth used in an earth-closet does not 
store up all the ammonia that the decomposi- 
tion of urine and solid fseces supplies to it, but 
aids in its destruction and dissipation.' Dr. 
Voelcker seems to have demonstrated the fact 
that a mass of dry earth, in the loosened condi- 
tion in which it is used in the closet, is a poor 
storehouse for the ammoniacal parts of the 
manure. If this is true, then the same property 
of earth should exist in the soil of a cultivated 
field. Lying in a compact bed it may retain 
animal manure indefinitely. Plowed and cov- 
ered with a crop it may be able to carry the 
decomposition of effete organic matter only to 
the point of preparing it for use before it is 
taken up by the roots of the crop. But in the 
naked fallow, which is open to the admission of 
air to the fullest possible extent, I see no reason 
why the destructive conditions of the earth- 
closet manure should not be present in the 
most active degree." 
"There you have it," said the Deacon as ho 
laid down the paper, " and it is right to the 
point, and about the most sensible thing I have 
read for some time." 
" The question," I replied, " is a very simple 
one. If it is true that earth mixed with manure 
destroys and dissipates the ammonia which the 
manure contains or which is formed from 
the decomposition of the nitrogenous matter, 
then naked fallows would be injurious. Col. 
Waring thinks Dr. Yoelcker's experiments 
prove that earth has this effect. But neither 
Col.W. nor Dr. V. offer any evidence of the fact. 
And it is only just to say that Dr. Voelcker 
does not even intimate that he thinks there is 
any loss of ammonia or nitrogen from mixing 
earth with manure." 
" It seems to me," says the Deacon, " that 
Col. Waring makes out a very strong case. It 
seems that earth which has been used fire times 
in a closet contains very little ammonia, and 
consequently it follows, as Col. W. says, that 
dry earth ' is a destroyer of the ammoniacal 
products of the decomposition of organic mat- 
ter.' And if dry earth has this effect in the 
closet why will it not have this effect in a sum- 
mer-fallow?" 
" But there is no evidence, Deacon," I replied, 
"that the earth in the closet destroys either 
nitrogen or ammonia." 
"I do not sec how you could have stronger 
evidence. It was found that earth which had 
been mixed with the farces in the closet, and 
then dried and used again, and again dried and 
nsed five times over, contained only, as Col. 
Waring says, ' a small amount of ammonia.' 
Does it not follow that the ammonia must have 
escaped?" 
" No, it does not follow." 
"What, then, becomes of the ammonia?" 
"It is in the soil." 
" But Dr. Voclcker did not find it." 
" Yes he did, Deacon. He did not find as 
much as Col. Waring thought he ought to have 
found. That is all." 
" But tell me," says the Deacon, " did not Dr. 
Voelcker determine how much ammonia there 
was in the soil before it was used and how 
much after it had been used five times ? " 
"Certainly he did; and he did not find as 
much as Col. Waring thinks he ought to have 
found. If you, Deacon, had ascertained how 
many bushels of corn you had in your crib the 
first of October, say 100 bushels; and should* 
then set a man to husk and draw in an acre of 
corn, which you thought would yield 250 bush- 
els of ears; and after the corn was drawn in 
you again measured your corn in the crib and 
found only 230 bushels, what would you say ? 
Would you sny that some one had stolen 100 
bushels of corn, or that the rats had eaten it, or 
that it had evaporated, or that the crib had 
destroyed it ? Now, I say, and I can prove if 
need be, that there is no more evidence to show 
that the earth destroyed the ammonia than 
there is that the rats ate the corn. You did 
not measure the corn that was drawn into the 
crib ; neither did Dr. Voelcker ascertain how 
much ammonia was put into the earth." 
The facts of the case are these : At the prison 
in Wakefield dry earth is used in the closets. 
Dr. Voelcker analyzed this dry earth before it 
was used in the closets, and again after it was 
used — once, twice, and thrice — with the follow- 
ing results: 
Phosphoric 
SUrogen* Acid. 
10 tons of dry earth before using 
contained G3 lbs. 30 lbs. 
10 tons of dry earth after being nsed 
once contained 74 lbs. GO lbs. 
10 tons of dry earth after being xised 
twice contained 84 lbs. 8S lbs. 
10 tons of dry cartb after being.uscd 
thrice contained 102 lbs. 102 lbs. 
Dr. Voelcker remarks : " The increase of 
nitrogen in earth manure I need hardly say is 
likely to be greater in the houses of the wealthy 
or well-to-do people than in prisons, where a 
less generous diet prevails ; and where conse- 
quently the food is worked out, so to speak, 
more perfectly, and the excreta are poorer in 
nitrogen than in the houses of the wealthy and 
better fed classes. Still, even under the most 
favorable circumstances, the accumulation of 
nitrogen in earth manure, for reasons which I 
shall mention presently, can not but be very 
inconsiderable." 
Here there is not the slightest intimation 
that there is any loss of nitrogen from Stirling 
and exposing the soil. 
Dr. Gilbert made analyses of earth manure 
with the following result : 
Xitrogen. 
10 tons of dry earth before using contained 1414 lbs. 
" " " after using once " 48 lbs. 
" " " " '• twice " "G!4 lbs. 
The Deacon got tired of this kind of talk. 
He could not see the point. And I do not 
blame him. I can hardly see it myself. Still 
these are all the facts there are. I fail to see 
how they show that a summer-fallow injures 
land. 
After looking at the above figures the Deacon 
remarked : " You say 10 tons of dry earth be- 
fore being used in the closet contained C2 lbs. 
of nitrogen. How much nitrogen does 10 tons 
of barn-yard manure contain ?" 
" That depends a good deal on what food the 
animals cat. Ten tons of average manure in 
the fresh state would contain about 80 lbs. of 
nitrogen." 
" Great are the mysteries of chemistry ! " ex- 
claimed the Deacon. " Ten tons of dry earth 
contain almost as much nitrogen as ten tons of 
barn-yard manure, and yet you think that 
nitrogen is the most valuable ingredient in a 
manure. What shall we be told next ? " 
" You will be told, Deacon, that the nitrogen 
in the soil is in such a form that the plants can 
take up only a small portion of it. But if you 
will plow such land in the fall and expose it to 
the disintegrating effects of the frost, and plow 
it again in the spring and let the sun and air 
act upon it, more or less of the organic matter 
in the soil will be decomposed and the nitrogen 
rendered soluble. And then if you sow this 
land to wheat after a good summer-fallow you 
will stand a chance of having a great crop." 
' This dry earth which Dr. Voclcker analyzed 
appeared, he says, "to be ordinary garden soil, 
containing a considerable portion of clay." 
After it had been passed once through the 
closet one ton of it was spread on an acre of 
grass land, which produced 2 tons 8 cwt. of hay. 
In a second experiment one ton, once passed 
through the closet, produced 2 tons 7 cwt. of 
hay per acre. We are not told how much hay 
the land produced without any dressing at all.' 
Still we may infer that this top-dressing did 
considerable good. Of one thing, however, 
there can be no doubt. This one ton of earth- 
manure contained 1} lb. more nitrogen and 1$ 
lb. more phosphoric acid than a ton of the dry 
earth itself. Why then did it prove so valu- 
able as a top-dressing for grass? I do not like 
to say, for I do not believe that it was duo 
solely to the decomposition of the nitrogenous 
matter and other plant-food in thecarth, caused 
by the working over and sifting and exposure 
to the air and to the action of the night-soil. 
Still it would seem that, so far as the beneficial 
effect was due to the plant-food itself, we must 
attribute it to the earth itself rather than to the 
small amount of night-soil which it contained. 
It is a very common thing in England for 
farmers to make a compost of the sods and 
earth from an old hedge-row, ditch, or fence 
and mix with it some lime or barn-yard manure. 
Then, after turning it once or twice and allow- 
ing it to remain in the heap for a few months, 
to spread it on meadow land. I have seen great 
benefit apparently derived from such a top- 
dressing. The young grass in the spring as- 
sumed a rich, dark green color. I have ob- 
served the same effect where coal-ashes were 
spread on grass land ; and I have thought that 
