AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
5 
The only objection to taking more is the 
money outlay, an objection that would be 
remedied if they could pay for them by suc¬ 
cessful competition at the fair. Many a 
farmer would be glad to double his supply 
of papers, if he could do it in this way. A 
man who takes one paper is much more 
likely to take two or three more, than that 
man who never reads a paper is to begin to 
take one. It would be acceptable to this 
class, and would be fulfilling the mission of 
agricultural societies to distribute these 
journals more largely among them. 
But there is another class in the commu¬ 
nity, and. if we mistake not, it is still in the 
(majority, though yearly diminishing, which 
‘demands the special attention of these soci¬ 
eties. We refer to those who read little or 
'nothing, and do not believe what they do 
-read, mainly for the reason that it is ‘ print- 
<ed.” These farmers are carried along in a 
course of improvement, if they improve at 
•all, by the force of example. A thriving 
■neighbor, who reads and thinks, stirs them 
up by his new crops, tools and fertilizers. 
But they are for the most part sluggish, be¬ 
cause they do not think and read for them¬ 
selves. They will not subscribe for a paper, 
because they do not believe in book-farm¬ 
ing. They would be ashamed to pay money 
for a paper, but would not object to receive 
it.as a premium on some of their articles 
exhibited at the fair. Nobody could then 
charge them with fooling away their money 
for nonsense. There arc many such culti¬ 
vators in the land, and the most hopeful 
means of reaching them, and converting 
them to the true faith in husbandry, is to 
•distribute a portion of our premiums at the 
(fairs in agricultural journals. 
Gentlemen of intelligence, who arc usu¬ 
ally associated in the management of these 
societies, should feel a sort of responsibil¬ 
ity for the whole body of cultivators which 
they represent. They may be enlightened, 
their prejudices softened, and their labors 
be made far more productive by the diffusion 
of knowledge among them. It is estimated 
that in some counties of Massachusetts, 
agricultural societies and journals have 
added twenty-five per cent, to the value of 
their productions within the past five years. 
The fountains of knowledge are full. They 
only need a wise direction to fill the land 
with intelligence, thrift and plenty. 
We throw out these suggestions no\\t, 
while these societies are holding their an¬ 
nual meetings and laying out their plans for 
another year, what better work can they do 
for their brethren who fail to prosper by 
their calling, than to put these journals 
within their reach, and make them an object 
of competition? Circulate the documents, 
and let there be light in every corner of the 
farm. We are not speaking for ourselves. 
There are many good agricultural journals, 
and were there not, our belief is that any 
cultivator will be decidedly benefitted by 
reading even the poorest one printed in the 
country.— [Ed. 
Among the advertisements in a late Lon¬ 
don paper, we read that “ Two sisters want 
washing .” 
MANURES—CH A PT E R 
This is a subject always in order, but we 
intend to make it a “ special order,” for a 
few months at least. We are considered a 
little ‘ heterodox ’ on the subject of manures 
by some of our cotemporaries. One thinks 
we reason wrongly. Another suspects we 
are aiming to be on the popular side of the 
question among farmers. Another calls us 
radical ; and a fourth, not long since, pro¬ 
nounced us an “ old fogic.” The last was 
Mr. Greeley, but we forgive him, as he has 
since taken back at least two-thirds of the 
charge. In the series of articles, of which 
this is the first, we shall set forth our opin¬ 
ion of the true philosophy of manures, with 
the appropriate practice, and give the rea¬ 
sons for the faith that is in us. We write, 
however, not to vindicate our own personal 
views—a matter of small account to the 
world in general—but with the hope of in¬ 
culcating right notions among the readers of 
the Agriculturist at least. 
Our present views arc very different from 
those we held some years since. When wc 
first turned our attention from simple prac¬ 
tice and observation to theorizing upon the 
means of increasing the growth of plants, 
we were struck with the beauty, sim¬ 
plicity and apparent truthfulness of the 
chemical theory, which may be stated thus : 
All plants are composed of two classes of 
elements,—the organic and the inorganic , or 
mineral, and these elements arc all essen¬ 
tial, and always exist in the same relative 
proportion in the same species of plants. 
For example : IDO pounds of dry wheat was 
stated to consist of, say 2 pounds of inorgan¬ 
ic matter, (which would be left in the form 
of ashes when the wheat should be burned,) 
and of 98 pounds of organic or gaseous mat¬ 
ter, which escapes into the air during decay 
or burning. 
Now the organic part is made up of the 
same elements as are found in water,air, and 
a certain gas (carbonic acid) which is al¬ 
ways found in the air; and as these sub¬ 
stances are always present around the plant, 
it was supposed that all that was necessary 
to be looked after in manuring a plant, was 
to see that its roots could find the necessary 
mineral elements to supply the 2 pounds of 
ashes. 
Agricultural chemists turned their atten¬ 
tion to discover what these ashes consisted 
of. They found, at first, an apparent uniform¬ 
ity in the composition of the ashes of the 
same plant; thus, for example, it was set 
down that 1,000 ounces of the ashes of 
wheat and turnips were made up as follows : 
1,000 ounces of 1,000 ounces of 
Wheat Ashes 
were supposed 
to contain 
Of Mineral Phosphates_500 ounces. 
Of Potash.250 ounces, 
Of Magnesia.120 ounces, 
Ot Soda. 83 ounces, 
0 f Lime. 25 ounces, 
Of Silica. 12 ounces, 
Of Iroa._^-. .. 7 ounces, 
Of Sulphuric Acid. 3 ounces, 
Of Chlorine. 
1,000 ounces. 
Turnip Ashes 
were supposed 
to contain 
67 ounces. 
■100 ounces, 
50 ounces, 
108 ounces, 
125 ounces, 
70 ounces, 
10 ounces, 
130 ounces, 
40 ounces, 
1,000 ounces. 
Now i) those mineral substances (th 
phosphates, potash, lime, &c.) are alway 
found in the ashes of wheat and turnips 
and if they are essential to the constitulio 
of these plants, and if the above table or any 
similar one which could be constructed, 
would show what proportion of each of 
these mineral substances is necessary to the 
formation or growth of these plants, then 
the process of manuring would be reduced 
to simply ascertaining whether any particu¬ 
lar soil contained all ihese essential ele¬ 
ments in due quantity and proportion, and 
then to apply to the soil the deficient min¬ 
eral substances, should there be any. 
As before stated, this theory appeared 
simple and plausible, and acting upon a be¬ 
lief in its truthfulness, Liebig and others 
first commenced a series of analysis of the 
ashes of different- plants to ascertain the 
composition; and next the analysis of 
soil«, to find what was wanting in their com¬ 
position. In order lo meet with certainty 
the necessities of a particular crop, in a 
soil which had not been analysed, specific 
manures were planned for each of the more 
generally cultivated crops. Thus, taking the 
above table as a guide, to furnish the miner¬ 
al supplies for ten bushels of wheat, all tha* 
would be necessary would be to supply the 
roots (or soil) with, say 6 pounds of phos¬ 
phates, 3 pounds potash, H pounds mag¬ 
nesia, 1 pound soda, one-third pound lime, 
one-sixth pound silica, with a little iron and 
sulphuric acid. Specific manures of this 
chaiacter were actually made up by Liebig 
himself, patented in England and on the 
Continent, and extensively sold. 
It is needless to say that they failed in 
practice ; but the theory is still held forth by 
many. It is this same theory which gives 
currency to the present belief in the efficacy 
of the artificial fertilizers, now so abundantly 
manufactured and sold to farmers—to the 
benefit mainly of the manufacturers them¬ 
selves. Though we desire to take up at 
once what we believe to be the true theory 
of manuring, and go into the practical de¬ 
tails, we must ask our readers to wait for 
the practical part of this discussion, for a 
number or two, or'until we have set forth 
some of the objections to the above theory, 
which lies at the bottom of so much of the 
present “ scientific ” agriculture. 
We confess to having been carried away 
with the views of Liebig when we first be¬ 
gan to look into this subject, and we accord¬ 
ingly quit all other pursuits and went into the 
laboratory, with the best teachers of analyt¬ 
ical chemistry we could find, and after a 
preliminary course of study and practice, 
we commenced the analysis of plants, soils, 
and manures, and expended much time a.id 
money in the enterprise. We give now only 
the results of a long series of experiments 
and much thought upon this subject. 
1st. There is no certainty that any con¬ 
siderable number of mineral elements are 
essential constituents or component parts of 
plants. Were they essential, we should find 
a far greater uniformity in the results 
of analyses. Those who will take the 
trouble to examine the matter carefully, will 
find that scarcely any two reliable chemists 
give the same relative proportion of miner¬ 
al elements in different specimens of the 
same plant. It was during an attempt to 
construct a table of the average comoosi- 
