October 19, 1893. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
347 
“ A NALYSE the plants you require, see what they are composed 
of, and then analyse your soil and see if these things are in 
it; if not, put them in. How simple, refreshingly simple, is it not ? 
What a glorious discovery ! Why, we can grow what we like, and 
where we like, and very nearly when we like. Why did not some¬ 
body think of this before ? ” These were something like my 
thoughts once upon a time. I was younger then and youth has 
its enthusiasm, its illusions, and afterwards its awakening. Since 
then I have found that matters do not always turn out as we think 
they ought. There is usually a hitch somewhere, sometimes two 
or three, and not seldom you begin to think there is nothing 
but hitches. Then a kink comes out, one of the hitches unravels, 
and you recommence with renewed energy ; the next hitch 
straightens out, and the fever of enthusiasm once more possesses you, 
but you again find something has gone wrong, and sit down dis¬ 
couraged. There was a time when I thought I held the science of 
agriculture in the palm of my hand. A few attempts to put theory 
into practice convinced me that some of it was oozing out between 
my fingers, then I began to wonder if I had not a handful of 
disconnected facts to play with, and to-day I see that scientific 
farming only looms hazily and lazily in the distance. 
Oh ! these visions of the young enthusiast, how they mock our 
eager souls! I was going to analyse every field and register the 
composition of its soils, and would henceforth know exactly what 
it wanted, and this is how it worked, or rather did not work. I put 
my views earnestly before a typical farmer, who listened to them 
all with a patience I have often since wondered at. Then he said, 
“Umph; so you are another of ’em, are you? You’re a clever 
young fellow, I daresay ; but you see, I am an old farmer—so was 
my father, so was my grandfather, and so was his for anything I 
know. They learnt summat, lad, by a lifetime’s work, and left their 
experiences to their sons, and I’ve got the benefit of it all and added 
my own, and you’ll excuse me if I think I know more about farming 
than you do.” He thought he was crushing me, but I said, “ Do 
you admit that many great improvements have been made in agri¬ 
culture, and especially in agricultural implements of late years?” 
“ Oh yes ! ” said he, “ that’s right enough, we’ve made wonderful 
progress, lad.” “Oh!” said I, “have you? Is there a single 
farmer, born such, that has not opposed every new thing with all 
his might ? Has there ever been an improved implement brought 
out by a farmer ? Has any one of these improvements been 
brought about by the farmers themselves ? Have not every one 
of them been suggested and planned by outsiders—people not to 
the manner born?” This rather startled him, I think, but, of 
course, did not convince him. Eventually I induced an amateur 
farmer to let me experiment, and the success was encouraging; but 
a knock-down blow was in store for me. I had as I thought an ex¬ 
ceedingly clever way of getting at the nature of the soil of a large 
field. I procured 16 or 32 half ounces of soil from as many parts of 
the field, and so obtained (I imagined) a fair sample of the whole. 
One day I had a sample of soil thus selected, and found it so full of 
iron that I said, “ This soil will grow nothing at all,” and was met 
with the reply, “ Why, it is the best land we have.” Still, I was 
right ; I could only judge by the sample I had in hand, and it was 
* Read byMR. W. PICKARD at the Monthly Meeting of the Sheffield Chrysan¬ 
themum Society, held in the Society’s meeting-roim, Oct. 11th, 1893. 
No, 695.—VoL. XXVII., Third Series. 
full of iron. A number of iron hoops had been left to fall to 
pieces on one part of the field, and from thence a good portion of 
my sample had been taken. I had already found out that to 
analyse soil for potash, lime, magnesia, phosphates, sulphates, 
nitrates, and chlorides involved eight different processes, and that 
to be fairly sure of the result each experiment had to be repeated 
twice or thrice, and that the farmer thought all this analysing could 
be paid for by “ thanks ” (I did not always get that), and when 
these iron hoops trundled up I just resigned that part of the 
business, and informed the farmers that if they wanted their soils 
analysing any more they must let their sons learn chemistry, or do 
it themselves, or pay from £5 to £10 for the work. 
The foregoing indicates some of the difficulties of soil analysis. 
An accidental spill of some material in one part of the field may 
totally deceive the chemist. He can but report what he obtains 
from the sample sent him. That sample may give a fairly correct 
idea of the bulk, but there is at least an equal chance that it may 
not, and till our farmers are also chemists, and can spend their 
evenings and rainy days in slowly ascertaining the nature of their 
soil, it will be best and cheapest to analyse crops, see what they 
are built up of, and put those materials into the soil as manure in 
the proportions found in the crops, and take no care for what may 
or may not be in the soil already. Of course where large quanti¬ 
ties of certain materials are known to be in the soil, such as lime 
or magnesia, those may be kept out of the manure ; but where 
there is a doubt it is best to add all. 
Nearly all plants and roots of plants contain phosphates, nitrates, 
sulphates, as well as soda, magnesia, potash and lime, and hence 
it may be argued (and fairly) that these materials must be available. 
Wheat, broadly speaking, analyses into 32 per cent, potash, 3 per 
cent, soda, 12 per cent, magnesia, 3 per cent, lime, 47 per cent, 
phosphates, 1 per cent, sulphates, and a little iron and silica. 
The straw of Wheat is more than half silica, that is flint, so that 
without silica you would get no Wheat at all, at least in its present 
state. As a creeping plant it might still flourish, and perhaps do 
better so. The things we do not know are vastly more numerous 
than those we do. It may be that the superabundance of silica alone 
causes the Wheat to rise upright, and that this is an interference with 
Nature’s first intention. Wheat, Oats, and Barley are all evidently 
the same plant modified by circumstances and environment. What 
they may eventually modify into no one can guess. A crab is a 
lobster with its tail curved in and set fast, and Indian Corn as a varia¬ 
tion of Wheat is less astonishing. We know not what anything 
may develop into. Chrysanthemum growers should see something 
of the vast latent power yet unused in Nature’s storehouse. Who 
can say what a simple Buttercup could be made into by constant 
attention and abundant supplies of all plant food? Food can make 
a worker into a queen bee. What could it not do if we knew how 
to utilise it to best advantage ? Environment is everything, the 
vast potentialities concealed in every speck of protoplasm are not 
to be measured by our stunted yard sticks. Potatoes analyse into 
about 60 per cent, potash, 1 per cent, soda, 3 per cent, lime, 5 per 
cent, magnesia, 1 per cent, iron, 17 per cent, phosphates, 6 per cent, 
sulphates ; Mangel Wurzels into about 30 per cent, potash, 30 per 
cent, soda, 6 per cent, phosphates, and other things. It is clear 
enough from this that Potato manure does not want soda, and 
Mangel Wurzel manure wants large quantities of it. The compo¬ 
sition of Strawberries is very like that of Mangel Wurzels, and I 
am not at all sure that if you were to try very hard and patiently 
you could not succeed in making a Mangel Wurzel into something 
very like a huge Strawberry. I am far from sure even now that 
Mangel Wurzel is not made into Strawberry jam. 
By this time you have begun to see that the question is not 
one of remarkable simplicity. The secrets of Nature have to 
be wrung from her by force of patient investigation, experi¬ 
ments long continued and often repeated. We have learned that 
all vegetable products are composed of various chemicals. Most 
No. 2351.— VoL. LXXXIX., Old Series. 
