14 
MANUKES. 
mouldering fire gives us the same products as are 
formed by decay ; that this is only a ; low, mouldering 
fire, and that mould, its product, is the natural manure 
of plants. It follows, that whatever substance produces 
mould, that is, water, carbon, and salts, may be used 
instead cf this natural manure. Among the salts 
found in mould, some are volatile, and are easily dis¬ 
solved by water. Others are fixed, that is, not evapo¬ 
rating easily, or not at all, and are quite insoluble in 
■vater. Now the first, or volatile and soluble, first 
;«ot when used in manure. They act quick, and are 
quickly done. The fixed and .insoluble act slower, 
they last longer. The volatile aVtq in the early stages 
of growth, the fixed in the later periods. The great 
difference in the action of manures, depends almost 
entirely upon the salts which theyt contain. These 
are the most important and essential. It is not so 
much the vegetable mould of manure which you want, 
as the salts which it contains. This is a well-settled 
principle. Land which has undergone the skinning 
process, old, worn-out, and run-out land, still contains 
a very large portion of vegetable matter; the coal or * 
carbon of mould without its salts. Give this worn- 
out land salts, and you may, by these alone, bring it 
back not only to its first virgin freshness, but you 
may even by salts alone make it fairer and richer than 
it was before man ever cultivated it. 
Too much stress has been all along laid upon the 
kind of soil. Go now to “ Flob,” in West Cambridge; 
no better farms or farmers, look the world through. 
Ask any of these practical men, whether the sandy 
and gravelly soil of Old Cambridge Common, or even 
of Seekonk Plain, can be n ade to bear as rich crops 
as their land? They will tell you yea. If your land 
will hold manure, muck it well and it will be as good. 
Now, this holding of manure belbngs to the subject 
of soils, and throwing that out of consideration, it is 
found that even lands w r hich do not hold manure, 
which have been worn out and exhausted by cropping, 
