BULLETIN OF THE BUSSEY INSTITUTION. 273 
advantageous upon soils that are tolerably well charged with vegetable 
mould. “In hot countries,’ says Loudon,* “putrescent manures are 
not altogether neglected, but they are much less necessary than in cold 
countries, and can be done without where there is abundance of water ; 
there, water, intense heat, and light, a consequently moist atmosphere, 
and a.soil well pulverized by art, supply every thing necessary for 
luxuriant vegetation.” 
It is notorious that repeated crops of grain may be grown without 
manure in the rich alluvial soils of warm climates. In many parts of 
Hindostan and of the fertile East Indian islands manures are rarely if 
ever used. In certain localities of Spain, also, and the south of France, 
and ‘of Sicily, as well as in some parts of Russia, grain has been 
grown. continuously for very long periods. The bearing of this class of 
facts upon the present inquiry is somewhat less emphatic, however, 
than that of the examples previously cited, and of others that will be 
given hereafter; since in the East Indies, as in most hot climates, the 
crops may undoubtedly, in many instances, get a good deal of nitrogen 
from river-water applied to them by way of irrigation, or from the 
water with which the low-lying lands are naturally charged. In a hot 
country, where evaporation is rapid, the moisture in a soil must be 
drawn not only continually but quickly towards the surface, together, 
of course, with the matters which it holds dissolved. Nevertheless, it 
would seem to be plain that, in climates warmer than our own, the 
nitrogen of humus is more immediately available for the use of plants 
than it is hereabouts. 
It is not unlikely that there is some truth in a belief that seems to 
be gaining ground in the Southern States of this country, to the effect 
that the nitrogen in such substances as fish-scrap, slaughter-house refuse, 
and the like, is there practically as useful pound for pound in a manure 
as the more active forms of nitrogen that are to be had in nitrate of 
soda or sulphate of ammonia. The true value of this opinion can 
hardly be determined except by repeated and long-continued intelligent 
observation and experimentation in actual field practice. For the 
present, the idea should be received with great caution, since the preva- 
lence of it may be in some part due to the representations of persons 
interested in the sale of various commercial fertilizers that contain 
fish-scrap or flesh-meal. In view of the easy solubility and the lack 
* Tn his “ Encyclopedia of Agriculture,” § 1251. 
VOL. I. 35 
