THE CULTIVATOR 
Is published on the first of each month, at Albany, N. Y., by 
LUTHER TUCKER, EDITOR AND PROPRIETOR. 
ONE DOLLAR A YEAR. 
Seven copies for $5 — Fifteen copies for ft 1 0,00—all payments 
to be made in advance, and free of postage. 0 Zr* All subscriptions 
to commence with the volume. 
OFFICE IN NEW-YORK CITY, AT 
M. H. NEWMAN’S BOOKSTORE, No. 199 BROADWAY, 
where single numbers, or complete sets of the back volumes, can 
always be obtained. 
O* “ The Cultivator” is subject to newspaper postage only. =£0 
MR HORSFORD’S LETTERS.—NO. XII. 
Giessen, April 16, 1S46. 
Mr. Tucker —A few days since, I received the 
numbers of the Cultivator from August forward. In 
glancing through them my eye met with numerous re¬ 
marks and inquiries, that, I am persuaded would not 
have found a place in your valuable journal, had the 
accompanying letter of Baron von Liebig been previ¬ 
ously circulated among your subscribers. 
In connection with the letter sent to you last year, it 
seems to me to present in the happiest manner, the 
great and yet simple truths of rational manuring. I beg 
for it an insertion in the Cultivator. 
Respectfully yours, E. N. Horsfokd. 
ON THE PRINCIPLES OF ARTIFICIAL MANURING. 
BY BARON VON LIEBIG. 
f we compare the experience of farmers regarding 
the fertility of the soil and the quantity of its produc¬ 
tions, we are surprised by a result which surpasses all 
others in general application and uniformity. 
It has been observed, that in every part of the globe 
where agriculture is carried on, in all varieties of soil, 
and with the most different, plants and modes of cultiva¬ 
tion, the produce of a field on which the same or dif¬ 
ferent plants have been cultivated during a certain num¬ 
ber of years, decreases more or less in quantity, and 
that it again obtains its fertility by a supply of excre¬ 
ments of man and animals, which generally are called 
manure; that the produce of the fields can be increased 
by the same matters, and that the quantity of the crop 
is in direct proportion to the quantity of the manure. 
In former times scarcely any attempt was made to 
account for the cause of this curious property of the 
excrements of man and animals. Without taking into 
consideration the origin of the excrements, and the re¬ 
lation they bear to the food, it was not astonishing that 
their effect was ascribed to a remnanc of vital power 
which should qualify them to increase the vitality in 
plants. Ascribing their influence on the fertility of the 
fields to an incomprehensible occult cause, it was for¬ 
gotten that every force has its material substratum ; that 
with a lever, in a mathematical sense, which possesses 
no extension and gravity, no effect can be produced, no 
burden raised. 
Guided by experience, which is the fundamental 
basis of all inductive science, and which teaches us th it 
for every effect there is a cause, that every quality, as, 
for instance, the fertility of a field, the nourishing 
quality of a vegetable, or the effect of a manure, is inti¬ 
mately connected with and occasioned by something 
which can be ascertained by weight and measure; 
modern science has succeeded in enlightening us on 
the cause of the fertility of the fields, and on the effects 
which are exercised on them by manure. 
Chemistry has shown that these properties are pro¬ 
duced by the composition of the fields; that their fit¬ 
ness for producing wheat or some other kind of plants 
bears a direct proportion to certain elements contained 
in the soil, which are absorbed by the plants. It has 
likewise shown that two fields, of unequal fertility con¬ 
tain unequal quantities of these elements; or that a fer¬ 
tile soil contains them in a different form or state from 
another, which is less fertile. If the, elements are con¬ 
tained in the soils in sufficient quantities, it produces a 
rich crop; if it is defective in one of them only, this is 
shown very soon, by the impossibility of growing in it 
certain kinds of plants. 
Moreover it has been proved with certainty what re¬ 
lations these elements of the soil bear to the develop¬ 
ment of the plants. Chemical analysis has demonstra¬ 
ted that a certain class of these elements is contained‘in 
the seeds; others in different proportions, in the leaves, 
roots, tubers, stalks. They are mineral substances, and 
as such, are indestructible by fire, and consequently 
remain as ashes after the incineration of the plants or 
of their parts. Many of these elements are soluble in 
pure water, others only in water containing carbonic 
acid, as rain water; all were absorbed from the soil by 
the roots of the plants in a dissolved condition. It has 
been shown that, if in a field, those elements which re¬ 
main after the incineration of the grain or seeds, are 
present in an insufficient quantity, no wheat, no barley, 
no peas,—in a word none of those plants can be culti¬ 
vated on that field which are grown on account of their 
seeds. The plants which grow on such a field produce 
stalks and leaves; they blossom but do not bear fruits. 
The same has been observed regarding the develop¬ 
ment of leaves, roots, and tubers, and the mineral ele¬ 
ments which they leave behind after their incineration. 
If, in a soil in which turneps or potatoes are to be cul¬ 
tivated, the elements of the ashes of these roots are 
wanting, the plants bring forth leaves, stalks, blossoms, 
and seeds, but the roots and tubercles are imperfect. 
Every one of the elements which the soil gives up to 
the plants is in a direct quantative proportion to the 
production of the separate elements of the plants. Two 
fields, which, under otherwise equal circumstances, are 
unequally rich in mineral elements of the grain, produce 
unequal crops. One containing them iu larger quanti¬ 
ty produces more than another containing them in less. 
In the same manner, the capacity of a soil to produce 
tuberculous plants, or such which have many leaves, 
depends upon its amount of the elements of the soil 
which are found in the ashes of those plants. 
It results from this with certainty, that the mineral 
substances which are furnished by the soil, and which 
4 * 
