only stalks of 4 feet in height, but that he gathered from a Swiss acre (juchart), at 400 square rods, 40 hundred weight of clover-hay at the first cutting, and 60 cwt. of clover-hay at the second cutting, or nearly fodder enough to feed a cow for a whole year from one juchart, 70 cwt. per Prussian acre.

The same results are observed in grain crops, by their luxuriant roots and stems, and by getting more grains, and these more perfect. So he reaped, last year, upon plastered manure, of spelt 12, of wheat 15, of barley 20, and of rye, 13 malter from the Swiss juchart, or 27 grains for each grain seed. His neighbors, having used unplastered manure, were compelled to be contented with much smaller crops.

But did the plaster alone produce these results? To answer this question in the affirmative, unconditionally, would be a delusion. These results are attained, and are relatively attainable, only by the above-described very careful (and it might be styled paltry, when once learned) and easy method of preparing the manure, by applying plaster. Without this great carefulness, the effect of the plaster would not be so powerful, because, if the air had more ready access, decomposition would commence in the heap, whereby the combinations formed for the conservation of the nitrogen would again be dissolved and destroyed.

The ammonia is known to enter the plant, not as sulphate but as carbonate of ammonia; thus, it must be decomposed again in the soil. This decomposition is to take place in the ground, but not in the manure-heaps, otherwise the application of plaster would be a failure.

This preparation of manure, with the application of plaster, is not sufficient to produce a large quantity of powerfully operating manure; much depends upon the keeping of the stock of cattle, in general.

Cattle poorly kept and fed give little and poor manure. A middle-sized cow, well and economically fed, requires daily about 30 lbs. of hay, or its equivalent, one-half of which is calculated as her sustenance, the other half as productive feed-making about 110 cwt. of hay, or its equivalent, requisite for the year.

Now if, for instance, 1100 cwt. of hay is fed to 10 cows, of course a larger quantity of manure will be obtained than if 15 cows are fed on the same amount of hay, because then 20 lbs. of hay daily would be the share to each cow-or 15 lbs. of hay as sustenance, and only 5 lbs. of hay as productive feed, would be consumed. Without taking into consideration the inferior manure made by such badly-fed cows, there would be lost, to the production of manure, 75 lbs. of hay daily consumed as sustenance for the extra five cows, or about 270 cwt. of hay per year. But if we suppose that of the feed given to the cows, only the productive feed produces manure, and the feed for sustenance is consumed exclusively to keep the animal in statu quo, there remains only 5 lbs. of hay per cow daily; and thus we would lose daily 10 lbs. per cow for the productive manure, amounting to 548 cwt. per year. This 270 cwt. of hay, with the litter, would have produced 130 cwt. of manure, but 548 cwt, with the straw, about 1500 cwt.

This simple illustration shows that the abundant feeding of cattle is of great importance to the production of manure.

If the productive power of the cultivated soil does not gradually decrease, on account of the cattle being badly fed, the loss of manure above stated must be replaced by money-by buying what is lacking. But if the cattle are fed abundantly, and proper care is taken that all the nitrogen be conserved in the manure, we need not apprehend that the known strata of guano and Chilian saltpetre wil! be exhausted, before new and still richer sources of vegetable nutriment will be discovered, by unceasing scientific investigation and by practical agriculture, resting upon the broad foundation of physiology. Ever since the beginning of the present century, the investigations of the unlimited field of agriculture have produced wonderful results; yet there is no doubt that, at the threshold of the next century, our descendants will be justified in calling our present scientific accomplishments only a well-meant and, therefore, praiseworthy scientific beginning.

Nevertheless, we will cheerfully return to our task, and we repeat it to all our worthy colleagues who will listen, that a nitrogenous manure, according to the law of nature, must always increase the productive power of the soil, if we are not induced to raise too many marketable products, which do not return any manure to the soil.

Von Fellenberg writes: "Four years ago, when I took possession of my paternal manor, I found it very much exhausted; the lessee had, during a period of 20 years, worked only to his own benefit; and I found every thing waste and deso

late.

"During the first summer I was hardly able to feed the four horses and six cows I received; rye produced scarcely six-fold; clover remained little and feeble; of hay and after-math I could hardly reap 15 cwt. from the juchart; potatoes and bulbous plants yielded very poorly; in short, the estate was completely exhausted, and caused me some loss.

"Now I am able to keep twelve to fourteen cows and six horses.

"All this was accomplished without purchasing any manure-without bonedust, guano, or Chilian saltpetre-or any feed; there was purchased only about 100 cwt. of straw per year, because but little grain could be sown in the beginning; and, besides, the oats were required for the horses.

"Since the lands had been properly cultivated before I took possession, this extraordinarily rapid improvement of the estate and increase of the crops may chiefly, if not exclusively, be attributed to the very careful accumulation of manure."

It is plain that some expenses were connected with this; but who could, without an equal amount of expense, have produced similar results? Surely not by applying guano and Chilian saltpetre. By fish-guano, by manuring with seagrass and weeds? Such assertions must be proved by figures, which will remain. true as gold upon the touchstone of long experience.

Then we will yield, but no sooner. It is the agricultural chemist's life task to unfold, by the aid of all scientific arguments, the results obtained by these processes, in the laboratory of experimental agricultural chemistry.

Von Fellenberg further writes: "For a beginning, I can expect no more than that, every year, fully one-third part of the cultivated land can be manured, with

over 300 cwt. of manure per juchart, and one head of cattle can be kept upon every 3 jucharts of soil of middling quality."

Then, with an exact economic al management, every year there can be manured as many jucharts (acres) of cultivated land as there are head of cattle in the stable; and each and every head will produce the manure requisite for an acre per year; or, in other words, with every head which, as the yield increases every year may be added to the stock, in the course of time, one more acre of land can be manured. This result is confirmed, if we take for the basis of our calculation, in the transformation of the food and the litter, the factor of 2.5 lb. of hay or its equivalent X straw the quantity of manure. If we estimate the food of a cow. per year, at 110 cwt. of hay, or 30 lbs. per day, and the straw at 25 cwt., we find 110 X 2.5 lbs. = 275 +25 = 300 cwt.; and from this it is also evident that, since the average yield of straw per acre may with safety be estimated at 25 cwt., on only as many acres of land straw-producing crops need be raised, as head of cattle can be kept, or are intended to be kept.

In the above calculation, all the liquid manure, and other collections from the stable, are not taken into account, being equal to such a cash amount as will amply pay all the expenses of the above-described preparation of manure.

Here we may state, also, the method in which v. Fellenberg prepares horsedung, because it may be instructive to many farmers. As the horse-dung, on account of its peculiar dryness, cannot be tramped down very solid upon the dung-hill, but will easily mould, therefore it is brought upon the dung-heap only after it has lain for about 14 days on the watering place, in the immediate vicinity of the well, and, being wetted there, has become a more compact mass. When thrown upon the dung-hill, it is forth with strewed over with plaster.

The liquid manure flowing from the dung thus prepared has a very strong odor of sulphuretted hydrogen, and is a powerful fertilizer. It is entirely neutral to litmus paper, which proves that no more free ammonia is contained therein, but that it has been completely fixed by the sulphuric acid of the plaster.

But against the above-described method of preparing manure, the objection may be raised that it aims too partially at the conservation of the nitrogen, and pays too little attention to the other important vegetable nutriments, such as phosphoric acid and alkalies. This objection is easily refuted.

In general, cultivated soil, if regularly manured, possesses enough of those volatile matters, so that their exhaustion may not be apprehended, especially if it is manured with stable-dung-the only manure which we call a perfect manure, because it contains all the substances required for the growth of plants; and moreover, an exhaustion of the soil need not be apprehended, with a careful, assiduous and deep cultivation, by which the mineral substances contained therein are breken up and made accessible to the plants.

But here also an analysis, made in accordance with the strictest rules of “black art," furnishes the proof in figures.

The soil selected for experimental investigation was a wet, cold and sterile loam-soil.

Examined to the depth of one foot, and calculated upon the area of a Swiss juchart 1.4 Prussian acre, or on 40,000 cubic feet, @ 80 lbs., there were found the following quantities of the principal nutritious substances for plants:

=

If the analysis had been made of a rich, long-cultivated soil, quite different and perhaps astonishing figures would have been obtained; at all events, there is not the least reason to apprehend that the soil may be exhausted by continuous nitrogenous manuring. Such quantities as shown by the above analysis will suffice to furnish hundreds of crops with the necessary mineral nutriments, without taking into consideration what is returned to the soil by regular manuring.

In manuring with 300 cwt. per juchart, the soil receives of the principal nutritious substances for plants:

IV. 66 150

alkalies;

calcareous earth, magnesia, iron, &c.;
nitrogen.

According to Boussingault, the crops of a regular rotation do not take more mineral substances out of the soil than are returned to it by the regular manuring with the stable-manure of the same farm.

The same author's investigations show that the same crops contain more nitrogen than the manure they received: therefore, the crops must have taken their surplus of nitrogen from the atmosphere and the humus in the soil.

Now, if cultivated plants are furnished by the manure with nitrogen more assimilable by the roots than by the organs of their leaves, in order to restore the equilibrium between the roots and leaves, as absorbing organs, they will also absorb more nitrogen, in form of ammonia, from the atmosphere, and, consequently, the yield will be considerably increased.

If cultivated plants are furnished with a surplus of nitrogen, then they are enabled and compelled, through the abundant absorption of the same, to assimilate also more mineral matter, in order to restore, according to their nature and constitution, the proper proportion of the inorganic to the organic matter; and thus it is explained why continuous, mere nitrogenous manuring, with a total exclusion of any supply of mineral nutriments, will exhaust and impoverish the soil, after the

lapse of years, but surely at last. This is proved by experiments instituted by the most celebrated men of France, Belgium, Holland, Great Britain, and Germany,

With these facts before our eyes, it would be idle if we would, at heavy expense, furnish the soil with those substances by the pound, which it already possesses by the hundred weight, but pay no attention to those substances-such as nitrogen and phosphoric acid-which are indispensable, and of which it never can receive too much;-and the chief of all is the nitrogen.

If we can procure that cheaply, we may look confidently into the future, and rest assured that, if we do not cultivate too imprudently, the productive power will continually increase, and with it the yield of the soil.

Further, if we take into consideration the beneficial influence which ammonia exercises upon the soil, by its dissolving, alkaline properties, and that it, being abundant in the soil, furthers the decay, the loosening and dissolution of the same -in a word, the preparation of vegetable nutriment, as Stoeckhardt pertinently says, in such a high degree, there surely can be no objection to our strenuous efforts to enrich our cultivated soil as much as possible with nitrogen.

This solving operation of the ammonia is fully evident from the fact, that notoriously sterile soil, manured exclusively with chemically pure carbonate of ammonia, has been made to produce remunerating crops.

In short, home-made manure is the soul of agriculture, and nitrogen the quintessence

of manure.

Yet a word or two on the best method of treating liquid manure.

The chief thing in preparing liquid manure is a good reservoir which will allow nothing to leak through, but is as close as possible. If the liquid manure is kept in this way, we will not smell it.

The case of liquid manure is known to be similar to that of wine. Grape-must is not yet wine, and has not the same properties. Must is cooling, wine warming, and yet the latter originated from the former.

So it is with liquid manure, if, like must, it ferments in well-closed reservoirs, i. e., if it is completely protected from the access of air. It undergoes a transformation, hardly to be noticed: the lithic and other nitrogenous combinations are decomposed; carbonate of ammonia is formed, which is the same in liquid. manure as spirit of wine in wine-the spirit in the matter.

If the liquid manure is kept in such well-closed reservoirs, protected from rain and sun, it will remain unchanged, and may be kept for a long time without losing any appreciable quantity of nitrogen, as wine kept in well-bunged barrels will retain, for a long time, its spirit and aroma.

When liquid manure is hauled upon the field, it soon sinks into the loose soil, and only a trilling evaporation of ammonia may be apprehended, and this may be entirely prevented if the field manured with liquid manure is also plastered forthwith;-but how would the costs then be?

If volatilization be entirely prevented, the last atom of ammonia has to be saturated with acid; for otherwise the unsaturated ammonia would volatilize, at