263 
order to provide plants, at the beginning of a new vegetation, 
with certain inorganic matters indispensable for their nutrition.” 
Attention to the preceding pages will show the gardener how 
important it is that he should frequently stir the surface-soil of 
his garden, that it may the more readily form new combinations 
with the gases of the atmosphere; besides this, we believe that 
the very form alone of the surface has an influence in the 
attraction of electric fluid. Nature furnishes plants with innu- 
merable points, in one form or other, and it is more than possible 
that these are intended as the immediate recipients of electricity. 
Again, lime, applied to old moist garden ground, we confldently 
recommend as highly beneficial, not only for its mechanical 
effect in pulverizing the soil, but also on account of its bringing 
into immediate action, as manure, the organic matter that may 
have there accumulated in a state unsuitable for the food of 
those plants with which the ground had been cropped. It 
should be remembered that lime must not be mixed with 
animal manures, as it would liberate their most valuable 
property, its ammonia. 
218 Charcoal. The late numbers of the Auctarium have been 
devoted to the subject of manures, and none can be investigated 
which is of greater importance to the horticulturist, for it is 
mainly on this that he is dependent for success in his operations. 
The last seven years have shown horticulture and agriculture to 
be so far dependent on chemistry and the sister sciences, that 
they have assumed a new character. Hence it is that manures 
have been so generally brought under consideration. Liebeg, 
whose views have been quoted above, has introduced Charcoal 
to notice as a manure, and various experiments with it have 
consequently been tried. Its useful properties seem to depend 
mainly on the carbonic acid which it supplies to plants, its 
retention of ammonia, and the advantage it produces by keep- 
ing the soil open for the ready extension of their roots. That 
carbonic acid is important to plants, will be readily admitted, 
when it is considered how great a quantity of charcoal, or car- 
bon, all vegetables contain. The increased facility of burnt 
soil depends, in part, on the carbonised roots of vegetables 
which it contains. Liebeg has stated that “plants thrive in 
powdered charcoal, and may be brought to blossom and bear 
fruit, if exposed to the influence of the rain and the atmosphere ; 
232. iOCTABIOM. 
