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 ORANaE JUDD COMPAIS^Y, 
 
 751 BROADWAY. 
 1883. 
 
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 lWtAltY^O«>CUl-TU»E 
 
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 Entered, according to Act of Congress, In the year 1883, by the 
 
 ORANGE JUDD COMPANY, 
 
 In the Office of the Librarian ol Couj^ress, at Washington. 
 
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PUBLISHERS' PREFACE. 
 
 The improvement of the soil by drainage and irriga- 
 tion, and by liming — the maintenance of its fertility by 
 the operation of our tillage implements — its exhaustion 
 by cropping, and its restoration by manuring — are the 
 proper subjects of these pages. The resources of the 
 farmer, in the economy of home manures and in the use 
 of manufactured and imported fertilizers, are considered 
 in detail. 
 
 Fertility of course depends not only on the soil but on 
 the climate. And it is on the fitness of the circumstances 
 in both these particulars that the luxuriance and pros- 
 perity of plant growth rest. The principles on which 
 fertility is dependent may be the same in all climates. 
 The capability of obtaining from soil and air the building 
 material of the growing plant is everyw^here its limit, 
 but it is the climate alone which determines the yegeta- 
 tion in which the fertility is exhibited. 
 
 Messrs. J. B. Lawes, J. C. Morton, John Scott, and 
 George Thurber, so eminent in their fields of labor, are 
 the writers of these valuable pages. 
 
 May, 1883. 
 
 (3) J- ,y r- - »7 ^ 
 
COKTENTS. 
 
 -•*•- 
 
 pAoa 
 Chapter I. 
 
 Origin and Formation of Soils 5-10 
 
 Chapter IL 
 Physical Properties of Soils 11-15 
 
 Chapter III. 
 Composition and Fertility of Soils ._. 16-27 
 
 Chapter IV. 
 Soil Improvement — Land Drainage and Irrigation 28-41 
 
 Chapter V. 
 Claying, Liming, Marling, Burning _ 42-47 
 
 Chapter VI. 
 Tillage Operations 48-61 
 
 Chapter VII. 
 Home Manures. 62-82 
 
 Chapter VIII. 
 Auxiliary Manures - 83-97 
 
 Chapter IX. 
 The Loss of Nitrogen 99-107 
 
 (4) 
 
1 ) J 
 
 
 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ORIGIN AND FORMATION OF SOILS. 
 
 Soil and Subsoil — Conversion of Rock into Soil — Processes of Weather- 
 ing and Denudation — Alluvium — Boulder Clay — Vegetable Mould — 
 Peat. 
 
 Soil and Subsoil. — The soil is that part of the ground 
 which can be tilled and in which plants grow. It is 
 merely the upper stratum of decayed rock mixed with 
 A^ege table and animal remains. It varies in depth from 
 less than three inches to more than a foot. 
 
 Immediately below the soil is the subsoil, which rests 
 upon underlying rock. The subsoil is generally more 
 compact than the soil, being less stirred in cultivation; 
 and it is frequently of a different color. The principal 
 difference, however, between the two consists in the greater 
 amount of the organic matter in the latter, which is 
 generally present to some extent in both. 
 
 The main distinction between the soil, the subsoil, and 
 the underlying rock consists in this, that soil is rotted 
 subsoil and subsoil is rotting rock. A vertical section of 
 the soil will generally show several gradations. The 
 whole may be made up of five different layers. There 
 will be: (1) A grass layer; (2) A vegetable soil layer 5 (3) 
 
 (5) 
 

 '' 6   . • o^^,' % r' THE SOIC OF THE FARM. 
 
 ^ e o c c f< <' ( t t c f f r ' 
 
 Soil or rotted subsoil; (4) Subsoil or rotting rock; (5) 
 Underlying rock. 
 
 Conversion of Rock into Soil. — Various forces are 
 active in this work. (1.) The atmosphere acts chemically 
 upon rock; its action consisting chiefly in the oxidation 
 of those minerals which can contain more oxygen, and in 
 the production of carbonates and bicarbonates, whose 
 solubility still further aids disintegration. (2.) Changes 
 of temperature have a loosening influence upon rocks, 
 by causing alternate expansion and contraction. We see 
 its effects in the way in Avhich, after a strong frost, the 
 soil of fields and the material of roads is found to be 
 loosened and pulverized. (3.) Ram acts both chemically 
 and mecluinically in the same direction. Its chemical ac- 
 tion arises chiefly from the solvent power of the carbonic 
 acid which it absorbs from the atmosphere, and which acts 
 especially upon rocks containing lime; partly, also, fi*om 
 its oxygen combining with substances not yet fully oxi- 
 dized. Its mechanical action appears in the way in wliich 
 it washes off the finer particles of disintegrated rock or 
 soil from higher to lower ground. (4.) Plants promote 
 the i^rocess of converting rocks into soil, both in their 
 growth and in their decay. Growing plants keep the 
 mineral matters, amidst which they grow, moist, and 
 enable water to penetrate and rot them ; while their roots 
 exercise a double effect, inserting themselves into joints 
 and crevices, and thereby causing fragments to be de- 
 tached, dissolving also and then absorbing minute por- 
 tions of the rock fragments. The action of decaying 
 vegetable matter is still greater. It absorbs much moist- 
 ure and keeps all bodies around it damp; it is constantly 
 yielding carbonic acid, which, being absorbed by the ram 
 water, is carried down through the soil and then acts 
 powerfully upon mineral matters below. Certain organic 
 «cids are also produced during decay, and these and 
 
origins" a^d formatioi^ of soils. 7 
 
 their combinations with potash, soda, and ammonia, act 
 energetically on carbonate of lime and on the oxides of 
 iron, and play a highly important part in the disintegra- 
 tion of various kinds of rocks. (5. ) The burrowing of 
 earth-worms and other earth- dwelling creatures brings 
 fresh particles to the surface, and admits the passage of 
 air and water to the subsoil. 
 
 According to Darwin the solid rocks disintegrate even 
 in countries where it seldom rains and wiiere there is no 
 frost. And in conformity with the views lately advanced 
 by De Konnick, such disintegrations may be attributed 
 to the carbonic and nitric acids, together with the nitrates 
 of ammonia, which are dissolved in the dew. 
 
 Eocks of various hardness weather at different rates. 
 Many of the slates and shales disintegrate rapidly. So do 
 granite and gneiss. Purely calcareous rocks, however, 
 weather quickest, the lime being dissolved out of them by 
 the rain-water. Over some limestone rocks this gives 
 rise to a lime- ^^ pan" in the subsoil. The dissolved lime 
 is carried down and often forms, with other materials 
 present, a layer as of concrete, the lime acting as a 
 cement. The same power which dissolves the carbonate 
 of lime in solid rocks, dissolves also that which may be 
 diffused through the soil. In chalk countries the rapid- 
 ity with which the lime wastes is shown by the residuum 
 of flints left on the surface; because though even these 
 flints gradually disintegrate, they do not decay so fast as 
 the chalk. In spite of much stone-picking, these flints 
 continue to make their appearance. 
 
 The rocks which weather with most ease and rapidity 
 do not always exhibit most soil: often the reverse. A 
 pure limestone would exhibit hardly any weathered band 
 or soil, because the carbonic acid of the rain would al- 
 most at once dissolve and remove the particles it acts 
 upon. Even in the case of igneous rocks, the composi- 
 tion may be such that those which weather most rapidly 
 
8 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 
 
 may not show the greatest depth of weathered band upon 
 the surface, owing to the removal of the particles as soon 
 as disintegrated. 
 
 Denudation. — The same weather action which forms 
 soil is also wasting or carrying them away. Soil is al- 
 ways travelling towards the sea. It is deepest in the val- 
 ley and thinnest on the brow of the hill. The land 
 movement consists for the most part of the mere sweep- 
 ing downwards of its component particles by ram or 
 thawing snow, or by surface drainage. The continued 
 rainfall not only dissolves out of the soil a great deal of 
 the soluble matter, but must eventually remove much of 
 the soil itself. Indeed, our brooks and rivers, after 
 heavy long-continued rain, show us by the yellow muddy 
 color of their waters that they are carrying a vast quan- 
 tity of sediment to the sea. All this sediment has come 
 from the most easily washed oft parts of the surface soil, 
 upon which the rains have persistently been falling. It 
 is, however, the fact that the soil, notwithstanding, re- 
 mains nearly constant in quantity. Though, therefore, 
 it is continually washed away, it is augmented from other 
 causes, just as much on an average as it is diminished by 
 denudation; and this augmentation evidently can pro- 
 ceed from nothing but the constant and slow disintegra- 
 tion of the underlying rock. If there were not a con- 
 comitant decomposition of the subsoils, converting them 
 into surface soils, the solid rock would everywhere appear 
 naked at the surface, as is the case in mountainous dis- 
 tricts where the wasting away of the soil is more rapid 
 than the rate of decomposition of the underlying rocks. 
 Even the tillage and plowing of arable lands plays into 
 the hands of the robbing weather action, by enabling it to 
 act more powerfully on the soil, and to waste it in a 
 liigher degree than it could have done liad it l)ecn ])rotect- 
 ed by natural vegetation or by the grass of pasture laud. 
 
ORIGII^ Aiq^I) FORMATIOIS^ OF SOILS. 9 
 
 Alluvium. — If no denudation took place, the soil of 
 every locality would be simply the decayed upper surface 
 of the rocks underneath it. But, in proportion to tlie 
 slope of the ground and the quantity of rain, the soil is 
 moved from higher to lower levels, so that m many cases 
 a good soil comes to lie upon rocks, which of themselves 
 would only produce a poor soil. During every fall of 
 ram, transportation of soil goes on, and the thicker soils 
 of the valley are partially formed in this way. 
 
 The running water bears along the transported matter 
 and leaves it when the force of the current diminishes ; 
 the finer portion being carried further ; the extremely 
 comminuted material moviug as long as the current 
 moves at all. When a river reaches a level tract on 
 which its motion is slow, and over part of which it can 
 flow in flood, all the suspended material, consisting of 
 fine sand and mud, is deposited and constitutes the 
 alluvium, or new land formed by such deposits at the 
 river mouth. 
 
 Marine alluvial soils have a similar origin. The rising 
 tide sweeps away the fine material from every exposed 
 bank or cliff, and becomes loaded with mud and extremely 
 fine sand, which, as it stagnates at high water, it deposits 
 in a thin layer on the surface of the flats. This layer, 
 which varies in thickness, is thus coarser and thicker at 
 the outer edge of the flats than near the shore. 
 
 From the same cause, the earlier deposit of the coarse 
 sediment, the lower strata of the layer are arenaceous, 
 while the upper surface is fine and slimy. Thus the flats 
 continue to grow until they reach such a height that they 
 can be overflowed only by the high spring tides ; and they 
 at length become gradually covered w^ith the coarse 
 grasses and sedges which grow in such places. 
 
 Drift or Boulder Clay.— In addition to river and 
 marine action, it must be borne m mind, however, that 
 
10 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 
 
 the abrading agencies of an ancient glacial period have 
 done a great deal towards commingling the detritus of 
 the different geological formations, producing wide- 
 spread *^ drift" soils of various composition. This de- 
 tritus is far from being uniformly spread over the island. 
 In some districts it is absent, while in others it forms a 
 thick mantle obscuring all the hard rocks. No richer 
 source of soil could possibly be mentioned, for our drift- 
 beds have been all formed by the breaking up of rocks of 
 different geological formations, and of various chemical 
 constituents. 
 
 It is no doubt true that in regions where there is a 
 thick cover of '* drift " the soil has little or no relation to 
 the solid rocks below the drift, but this " drift" is there 
 really the surface ^^^rock/' in the agricultural sense of 
 that word ; so that there is no exception here to the rule 
 that, soil is rotted subsoil and subsoil is rotting rock. 
 
 Vegetable Mould is continually forming wherever 
 plants grow. It is the foundation, and often the entire 
 source, of the organic portion of the soil. Where vege- 
 tation is scanty, or where the produce of the soil is re- 
 moved by man or animals, it occurs sparingly. Deep 
 beds of this mould are, however, met with in forests 
 under trees, and on dry land generally, wherever vege- 
 tation is rank and neglected. 
 
 Peat, like vegetable mould, is produced by the slow 
 decay of plants and their remains in the midst of water. 
 The peat may arise simply from the accumulation of 
 neglected vegetable matter in moist situations. Where 
 successive generations of plants have groAvn and decayed 
 upon a soil, the vegetable matter increases m such a pro- 
 portion that tlie soil approaches to a peat in its nature ; 
 and if in a situation wliere it can receive water from a 
 higher district, it soon becomes spongy, and unlitted for 
 the growth of any but coarse aquatic plants. 
 
PHYSICAL PROPERTIES OF SOILS. 11 
 
 Another mode in which peat is formed is by the gradual 
 accumulation and decomposition of aquatic plants in 
 shallow lakes and stagnant pools. This kind of peat is of 
 a more loose and spongy quality. What has greatly con- 
 tributed to its formation is the destruction of ancient 
 forests, either by the operation of some natural cause, or 
 by the hand of man. When water gets collected or choked 
 up, as in a morass for instance, many plants contrive to 
 grow in it, and by their decay form peat — especially the 
 " bog moss," which, while it grows above, decays beneath. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 PHYSICAL PROPERTIES OF SOILS. 
 
 Texture — Absorbent Power — Temperature. 
 
 Soils differ greatly, not only in chemical constitution, 
 but also in physical characteristics; and, in our estimate 
 of them, we must be guided by their climatic and physical 
 relations no less tban by the results of chemical analysis. 
 It is comparatively easy to adapt the plant or crop to the 
 nature of the soil when once we know what mineral in- 
 gredients are required by the one and afforded by the 
 other; but it demands close observation and a more dil- 
 igent application of means to bring the physical or 
 mechanical qualities of the soil into the state most con- 
 ducive to the growth of its natural products. The nec- 
 essary influence of mechanical ojierations here becomes 
 obvious, for the circumstances of air, moisture, and 
 w^armth, which are essential to the development of the 
 changes wliich occur in the process of germination, are 
 but slightly influenced by the chemical properties of the 
 
12 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 
 
 soil, being all dependent npon its mechanical condition. 
 And this influence is not confined to the first stage of 
 vegetation, for at no period of growth or maturity can 
 the plants avail themselves of their full amount of food 
 unless the sta|;e of the soil admits of the free passage of 
 air and water, and favors the extension of the roots in 
 all directions. 
 
 Texture of Soils. — In this respect the soil may vary 
 from coarse pebbles or loose sand to the finest and most 
 tenaceous clay. In general, however, those soils are best 
 adapted for agriculture which consist of mixtures of sand 
 with a moderate quantity of clay, and a little vegetable 
 matter. When sand or other coarse material predomniates, 
 the soil is light and easy to till, and will grow all the 
 crops suitable to the district; but it is deficient in the 
 power of retaining water and the soluble and volatile 
 parts of manure. When clay is in excess, the soil is 
 heavy to till, and will probably grow fewer crops; it is 
 too retentive of water, is not easily w^armed, does not ad- 
 mit of access of air, and consequently does not facilitate 
 those chemical changes in the soil and manure placed 
 in it, which are necessary to prepare proper food for 
 plants. 
 
 Clay lands, whether in the dry or WTt state, are the 
 most difiicult to work; sandy soils and those containing 
 much organic matter being the most easy. AVhen land is 
 worked in a wet state, we have not only to overcome the 
 cohesiveness of the particles among themselves, but at 
 the same time their attachment or adhesion also to the 
 agricultural "implements employed. In a wet climate, 
 therefore, the working days for tillage will be fewer than 
 in a dry one, and proportionately more so on clay soils 
 than on liHit soils. Less work can also be done in a day 
 with the same power on clay and heavy soils than on 
 sandy or light ones. On clay lands, a i)air of horses can 
 
PHYSICAL PROPEETIES OP SOILS. 13 
 
 seldom do the tillage of sixty acres per annum; but on 
 light soils a pair of horses may overtake the work of 
 eighty acres and upwards, except under very laborious 
 rotations of cropping. 
 
 The terms light and heavy, as commonly applied to 
 soils, do not refer to their actual weight, but to their 
 tenacity, and the degree of resistance they will offer to 
 the plow or other implements. Sandy soils are, m 
 the farmer's sense of the word, the lightest of all soils, 
 because they are easiest to work, while in actual weight 
 they are the heaviest soils known. Clay, also, which we 
 call a heavy soil, because stiff and unyielding to the 
 plow, is comparatively a light soil in actual weight. 
 Peat soils are light in both senses of the word, having 
 little actual weight, and being loose or porous. 
 
 Absorljent amd Retentive Powers of Soils. — If there 
 were no other difference in soils than that of texture, that 
 which contained the greatest amount of finely divided 
 matter would possess an advantage over the soils with 
 coarser parts. One cause of this superiority consists in 
 the greater absorptive and retentive power which finely 
 divided matter possesses, due mainly, in all probability, 
 to the immensely greater quantity of internal superfices 
 in a given bulk or weight of the more finely divided soil. 
 The ammonia floating in the atmosphere is continually 
 being washed into soils, in solution with rain-water. 
 Clay, oxide of iron, and the organic matter contained in 
 the soils, perform the important function of absorption. 
 This property of clay may be one of the circumstances 
 , which render clay soils better for wheat than sandy soils. 
 But, although clay contains a larger porportion of this 
 absorbed substance than sands or loams, it cannot be 
 doubted that these must receive from rains the same 
 amount of fertilizing matter as the clay; only they have 
 less ability for retaining it, or at least for storing it up. 
 
14 THE SOIL OF THE FAEM. 
 
 The soil, however, is not a mere sieve through which 
 any matter in solution can pass freely. It has a power of 
 retaming, as in a filter, many saline and otiier substances 
 that may be present in the water permeating it. The 
 experiments of Way, Voelcker, and others have shown 
 that when surface waters charged with the products of 
 vegetable decay are brought mto contact with argillaceous 
 sediment, they part to some extent wdth their potash, 
 ammonia, silica, phosphoric acid, and organic matter, 
 which remain in combination with the soil; while, under 
 ordinary conditions at least, neither nitrates, soda, lime, 
 magnesia, sulphuric acid, nor chlorine are retained. The 
 phosphates are probably retained m combination with 
 alumina or peroxide of iron, and the silica and organic 
 matters also enter into more or less insoluble combina- 
 tions. It follows from these reactions that drainage- 
 waters, especially from clay soils in a good state of jduI- 
 verization, are found to carry off nitrates, -sulphates, 
 chlorides, or carbonates of soda, lime, and magnesia. In 
 light and sandy soils the power of retaining nutritive 
 substances is less than in the case of heavier soils, or than 
 soils having much vegetable matter. Were it not for this 
 power, the soluble substances present in the soil, whether 
 naturally or applied in manures, would often be speedily 
 washed out of it; and tillage and draining would much 
 more rapidly impoverish the land than they do, by allow- 
 ing its soluble constituents to be carried off by water. 
 
 The power of soils to absorb and retain moisture is in 
 direct ratio^ot only to the quantity of organic matter in 
 the soil, but also to the fineness of the particles of the soil. 
 Hence it becomes important, in a practical point of view, 
 to secure a proper degree of fineness in tlie particles of 
 a soil if it is to withstand drouth. During dry weather 
 plants require a soil which is both absorptive and re- 
 tentive; and that soil which is capable of seizing atmos- 
 pheric moisture, and holding it when the atmosphere is 
 
PHYSICAL PROPERTIES OF SOILS. 15 
 
 heated, is one of the best constituted soils. But " stiff 
 clays, which take up the greatest quantity of water, when 
 it is poured upon them in a fluid form, are not the soils 
 which absorb most moisture from the atmosphere 
 in dry weather; they cake and present only a small sur- 
 face to the air, and the vegetation on them is generally 
 burnt up almost as readily as on sands. The soils that 
 are most efficient in supplying the plant with water by 
 atmospheric absorption, are those in which there is a 
 due mixture of sand, finely divided clay, and carbonate of 
 lime, with some animal or vegetable matter, and which 
 are so loose and light as to be freely permeable to the 
 atmosphere. With respect to this quality, carbonate of 
 lime and vegetable matter are of great use in soils; they 
 give absorbent power to the soil without likewise giving 
 it tenacity; sand, which also destroys tenacity, on the 
 contrary, gives it little absorbent power." In accordance, 
 then, with these observations, Ave find that the materials 
 which are most influential in soils may be arranged in 
 the following order, when their relations to moisture 
 are considered: — organic matter, marls, clays, loams, and 
 sands. 
 
 The Temperature of a soil depends very much upon 
 its humidity. Dry land absorbs heat more quickly and 
 loses it more slowly than that which is wet, and thus the 
 summer temperature of our undrained districts will be 
 lower than if they had been drained. 
 
 The temperature of drained land is in summer occa- 
 sionally three degrees Fah. above that of undrained land. 
 The greatest difference between the temperature of the soil 
 and the air occurs in spring, the soil acquiring the proper 
 temperature for the coming vegetation rather slowly, in 
 consequence of the evaporation required in order to dry 
 it sufficiently. In the autumn, it seems to have acquired 
 a stock of heat which is sufficient for some time without 
 
16 THE SOIL OF THE FAIIM. 
 
 exhaustion, while at the same time it operates favorably 
 in sustaining the proper temperature for the ripening of 
 later fruits and other croj^s. The surface heat is often 
 preserved, too, in the autumn by rain; and in the spring 
 rains aid in warming the soil. Emmon mentions an in- 
 stance of rain whose temperature was fifty-four degrees 
 falling when the earth was fourty-nine degrees, and the 
 surface was raised soon after to fifty-one degrees. Dark- 
 colored soils absorb heat more rapidly than light-colored 
 ones. 
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 
 COMPOSITION AND FERTILITY OF THE SOIL. 
 
 Organic and Inorganic Constituents — Classification — Composition and 
 Texture — Barrenness — Fertility, natural and acquired — Exhaustion 
 and Restoration of Fertility. 
 
 Soil consists of an organic and an inorganic or mineral 
 part ; and we have seen that the former is derived from the 
 roots and stems of decayed plants and from the manure 
 and remains of animals, and the latter from the waste of 
 the rocks forming the earth's crust. 
 
 Orp^anic matter is most deficient in sandy soils and 
 poor clays. Even in fertile soils, however, it often occurs 
 but sparingly. In one sample of fertile mould, the amount 
 of organic matter was ascertained to be only 1.7(> per 
 cent. ; in the famous black soil of Russia it varies from 
 five to twelve per cent. In leaf-mould the amount is 
 much greater, and in peat the carbon alone sometimes ex- 
 ceeds sixty per cent. The carbon in tlie soil tends gradu- 
 ally to oxidize and to disappear, except where water ac- 
 
COMPOSITION AKD FERTILITY OF THE SOIL. 17 
 
 cumulates and the climate is cool ; so t-hat if we exclude 
 living roots and root fibres, there is, even in the oldest 
 pasture-land, no great quantity of organic matter, not- 
 withstanding the continued decay of the roots and under- 
 ground stems of plants and the occasional addition of 
 manure. 
 
 The Inorganic or illineral portion of the soil consists 
 of the same substances as the inorganic part of plants, 
 with the addition of alumina. The mineral constituents 
 of soils include the following substances: — 
 
 Silica. Potash. 
 
 Alumina. Soda. '• 
 
 Calcic carbonate. Ferric oxide. 
 
 Phosphoric acid. Magnesia. 
 
 Sulphuric acid. Chlorine. 
 
 These constituents exist in very different proportions 
 in different soils. The first three — sand, clay, lime — 
 represent more than ninety per cent, of the substance of 
 most soils; and, as one or other of them prevails, the soil 
 is characterized as calcareous, clayey, or sandy. The most 
 active constituents of the soil, however, phosphoric acid 
 and the alkalies, occur in very small quantities, as do the 
 other and less important constituents — magnesia, chlo- 
 rine, and sulphuric acid. 
 
 Silica exists in very different proportions in different 
 soils, but chiefly in an insoluble form, and that most 
 largely in the poorest sands, fertile soils alone containing 
 it in a soluble form. Sandy soils contain eighty per 
 cent, and upwards of silica : even stiff clay soils from 
 sixty to seventy per cent., and calcareous or lime soils and 
 marls from twenty to thirty per cent. In sandy soil there 
 is an abundance of silica, but it is not available. In clay 
 it is also abundant, but it is the quantity of it which is 
 soluble that determines its value as contributing to the 
 food or life of the plant. 
 
 It is in the form of soluble silicates that silica does its 
 
18 THE SOIL OF THE FAEM. 
 
 work as plant food. Its use in the form of sand consists 
 in its influence on the texture of the sand. 
 
 Alumina is a valuable constituent of soils as giving sub- 
 stance and stiffness of texture to the soil. In combina- 
 tion with silica (as the silicate of alumina) it is clay. It 
 is contained in greatest proportion in the stiffer clays, but 
 it rarely exceeds ten per cent, of the whole mineral con- 
 stituents of a soil. Clay soils contain on an average from 
 six to ten per cent, of alumina. In sandy soils it varies 
 from one to four per cent. ; and in marls, calcareous soils, 
 and vegetable moulds from one to six per cent. 
 
 The larger the percentage of alumina m the soil, the 
 more difficult is its cultivation — the adhesive character of 
 the earth offering a stubborn resistance to the passage of 
 the plow and other implements through it. 
 
 Calcic carbonate, a combination of lime and carbonic 
 acid, varies from about ninety per cent, in some marls 
 and limestone soils to mere traces in some other soils. 
 Clays and loams generally contain one to three per 
 cent, of this substance. Less than one per cent, may 
 be regarded as a defective proportion. AAliere a soil is 
 deficient in lime, the lime present exists in it mostly in 
 combination with the organic acids, and is more abun- 
 dant in the surface than m the subsoil. 
 
 Phosphoric acid is contained in all good soils, but only 
 in small quantities, when compared with their other con- 
 stituents. It exists in combination with lime, iron, and 
 alumina. Phosphate of lime is its most common combi- 
 nation. It is generally found in very minute quantities, 
 but in clays its percentage is sometimes more than one 
 per cent. In general, even very fertile land contains less 
 than this proportion, and the average amount is probably 
 about a half per cent. The supply of phospliates is 
 shown by analysis to be derived in the main from the 
 rocks themselves. The fossilii'erous rocks yield it most 
 abundantly. 
 
COMPOSITION AKD FERTILITY OF THE SOIL. 19 
 
 Potash, an element of felspar, is present in large quan- 
 tity in soils derived from the primitive and igneous rocks. 
 It varies in different soils from the merest trace to one or 
 two per cent. Sandy and peaty soils and marls are in 
 general deficient in this alkali. Soils rich in alumina are, 
 with some exceptions, generally rich in potash. It exists 
 in the soil in combination with silica, forming a substance 
 which is to some extent soluble in water. Soda is a less 
 important constituent in soil than potash, and, unless 
 near the coast, is present in even smaller quantity. 
 
 Of the other ingredients which have been named, ferric 
 oxide, invariably found in soils, is sometimes found in 
 the subsoil in injurious forms. The ferric orper-oxide, 
 better known as the red rust of iron, is its most favorable 
 condition in the soil. In its less perfectly oxidized form, 
 soluble in vegetable acids, it exists in undrained veg- 
 etable soils, and, on drainage, entering the pipes with 
 the w^ater W' hich is being drawn off, it forms, on per-oxi- 
 dation in the presence of the air, an insoluble ferric de- 
 posit, which is sometimes in quantity sufficient to choke 
 the pipes. Magnesia is found in all fertile soils, in pro- 
 portions, however, often amounting to a mere trace. 
 Sulphuric acid and chlorine occur very sparingly in most 
 soils. 
 
 Classifications of Soils. — In talking of soils, a precise 
 nomenclature should be adhered to in preference to local 
 terms. Otherwise men in different districts will often fail 
 to understand what particular kind of soil is alluded to. 
 The most common classification of soils is based on their 
 composition; and the names applied to them take after 
 their ^predominant ingredients. Thus where sand, clay, 
 lime, or organic matter predominates in a soil, it is sandy, 
 clayey, calcareous, or vegetable, as the case may be. A 
 mixture of sand and clay is called loam. If it is needful 
 to be more specific, loams, etc., are designated by the pre- 
 
20 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 
 
 dominance in them either of sand, clay, or lime, as sand 
 loams, or clay loams, etc. Soils are also popularly desig- 
 nated from their texture as light or heavy, porous or im- 
 pervious; from tlieir relations to heat and moisture as 
 wet or dry, cold or warm; and from their measure of fer- 
 tility as rich or poor, fertile or infertile, etc. Again, the 
 class of croj^s respectively best adapted to each, has led to 
 clays being spoken of as wheat and bean soils, and friable 
 soils as barley and turnip land. 
 
 The Composition of tlic Soil is one of the conditions 
 on which the fertility of a soil depends. 
 
 On this composition depends its supply of plant food. 
 Fertility does not altogether depend on the quantity of 
 organic matter i^resent in the soil. There are some allu- 
 vial soils nearly destitute of organic matter, and yet of 
 almost inexhaustible fertility; and there are peaty soils 
 which are rich in organic matter, yet very barren. The 
 organic matter of the soil, however, is of great value. 
 It is constantly yielding by its decay matters which 
 nourish the organic parts of the plant, and it is setting 
 free, little by little, the earthy matters of its own ashes. 
 It is also, by its decay, inducing chemical changes which 
 tend to set free other matters held in combination in tlie 
 particles of the soil. It renders clay soil more friable, 
 and sandy soils more retentive of substances in solution; 
 and these are certainly great uses. 
 
 The mineral matter of the soil is of equal importance. 
 All naturally fertile soils contain a notable ([uantity of 
 each of the different mineral substances which have been 
 named, which are indeed essential to fertility, for a soil 
 destitute of any one of them is more or less barren : fer- 
 tility being limited by the minimum of anyone necessary 
 ingredient, even though the maximum of the others be 
 present. 
 
 However fertile a soil may be, not more perhaps than 
 
COMPOSITION AKD FERTILITY OF THE SOIL. 21 
 
 one per cent, of its substance is, at any moment, in a fit 
 condition for nourishiug our crops. The great bulk of 
 it is unayailable to the plant at any one time, and is only 
 slowly liberated by the action of air, of moisture, of heat, 
 and of manure. It is on the rate at which this libera- 
 tion of plant food takes place that the natural fertility of 
 the soil may be said, in a great measure, to depend. 
 
 A soil may contain abundance of phosphoric acid, 
 potash, magnesia, etc., and yet be infertile, if these exist 
 in the soil only as apatite, felspar, and serpentine, be- 
 cause these minerals do not }ield their elements to the 
 solvent agencies of the soil or plant rapidly enough to 
 furnish the required amount of jDlant food. Nitrates and 
 ammonia salts, which are the natural sources of nitrogen 
 to crops, never need be present in the soil in more than 
 the minutest proportion. It is only requisite that they 
 be gathered or generated there as rapidly as crops require 
 them. The process of nitrification, whereby inert or un- 
 assimilable nitrogen existing in the soil is converted into 
 nitric acid, thus becomes of tho utmost agricultural 
 importance. 
 
 On the other hand, the nutritive substances which are 
 yielded naturally by the soil may be in a state so soluble 
 as to be very liable to waste before they can be taken up 
 by the roots of the growing plants. 
 
 Everyday experience proves that soils differ greatly in 
 these respects. Nearly all the materials which go to 
 make up the structure of the earth's crust are such as to 
 aSord, by their decomposition, a soil fit for the support 
 of vegetable life ; but all rock-formations do not furnish 
 equal amounts of these materials ; and, while all soils 
 have considerable power of retaining in their pores even 
 the most soluble substances, some part with them too 
 readily, and others retain them too firmly, or only part 
 with them when exposed to various preparatory processes. 
 
22 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 
 
 These differences are the result of geological formation, 
 as well as of chemical composition. 
 
 A proper mechanical texture in soils is also essential 
 to fertility. On the texture of a soil depends, not only 
 its suitableness for the growth of different crops, but like- 
 wise the rapidity of their growth. It is this also which 
 regulates, to a great extent, the soil's power of absorbing 
 and retaining heat, moisture, and manure. To be fertile, 
 the soil must be firm enough to afford a proper degree of 
 support to the plants which grow in it, and yet loose 
 enough to allow the delicate fibres of the rootlets to ex- 
 tend themselves in all directions. It must be of such a 
 texture as to allow the free access of air, without which 
 plants cannot live ; and it must be close enough to retain, 
 for a considerable time, the water which falls on it, and 
 at the same time, porous enough to allow the excess to 
 drain away. In this respect, the nature of the subsoil 
 and the depth of the surface soil are both of them im- 
 portant. AYhen a soil rests immediatcl}^ upon a bed of 
 rock or gravel, it will be naturally drier than where the 
 subsoil is of clay and marl. On the other hand, a clay 
 subsoil may be of macerial advantage to a sandy soil, by 
 enabling it to retain moisture longer in dry weather. 
 
 For the fertility of a soil depends not only on its com- 
 position — not only its wealth as a full storehouse of what 
 the growing plant needs as food, but on its efficiency as 
 a laboratory in which the materials thus required are 
 prepared for use. And it is in its relations to the water 
 which is the great carrier to and fro of the ingredients 
 which are at once the chemicals in this laboratory and 
 the food in this storehouse that the efficiency of a soil in 
 both these characters, and therefore its fertility, very 
 materially depends. Unless there be a sufficiently free 
 passage for the rain-water throughout the substance of 
 the soil, neither will the food of plants be properly pre- 
 
COMPOSITION AKD FERTILITY OF THE SOIL. 23 
 
 pared, nor the stationary roots of plants be fed. It is in 
 the great change thus introduced into water-logged soils 
 by land drainage that its extraordinary power as a fer- 
 tilizing agency depends, to which reference is made in 
 another chapter. 
 
 The relative fertility of a soil is further dependent on 
 the climate wherein it lies. Disregard of local conditions 
 as to rainfall, temperature, aspect, height above the sea, 
 and other necessary circumstances, may lead to very erro- 
 neous estimates of the value of soils. They may be the 
 same in composition and texture, and yet diifer greatly 
 in value. Nothing is more certain than that the amount 
 of rain, and the season of its descent, determine in a 
 great degree the nature of the husbandry of the place, 
 and the value of its soil for agriculture. The temperature 
 of the air in any particular locality has an important 
 bearing upon the actual productiveness of the soil, what- 
 ever may be its composition and texture, and however 
 propitiously the rain may fall upon it. Other things 
 being equal, we should expect that sheltered situations, 
 with a good southern aspect, would be those in which we 
 should find the capability of any given soil best exhibited. 
 But though soil and rain and duly-tempered warmth 
 favor us, these and many other considerations besides, 
 may fail to determine, in every case, whether this or that 
 plant may be grown within particular limits. That also 
 depends on the presence or absence of its proper food, 
 and it is here that art is available for meeting the defects 
 of nature. 
 
 Causes of Barrenness. — They are of course the converse 
 of those of fertility. The soil may be empty, considered 
 as a storehouse of plant food, or locked up in stagnant 
 water, and thus incapable as a laboratory in which that 
 food is prepared. There are, however, special causes of 
 infertility. This may arise from the soil containing some- 
 
24 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 
 
 tiling injurious to vegetation ; sucli as an excess of organic 
 acids, or the presence of small quantities of sulphate of 
 iron or other poisonous ingredients. It may also be due 
 to an excess of otherwise valuable ingredients, such as 
 organic matter, sand, lime, or even clay. In the strict 
 meaning of the word no soil, unless it contains some 
 substance poisonous to plants, is absolutely barren ; but 
 one may call a soil barren which will not produce such 
 plants as the farmer cultivates. Such a soil may be 
 made fertile by adding to it the substances in which it is 
 deficient ; but if this cannot be done except at a cost as 
 great or greater than that for which fertile soil can be 
 procured, the soil may be regarded as practically worth- 
 less. 
 
 Natural and acquired Fertility. — The distinction here 
 must not be forgotten. Sir James B. Lawes in discussing 
 this subject, writes thus : '^ The natural fertility of a soil, 
 whether high or low in degree, is, comparatively speak- 
 ing, a permanent quality ; it can only be injuiiously 
 affected by the continuance of an exhaustive system of 
 cropping for a long period of time ; it is the property of 
 the landlord ; and, excepting in the case of very light 
 soils, it is the chief element in determining the rent- 
 nature of the land. Acquired fertility, or ^condition,' 
 as it is termed, is a quality distinct from the natural 
 fertility of soil ; it is due to the accumulation within the 
 soil of manure matters which may be withdrawn or re- 
 duced by cropping within a comparatively short period 
 of time. It is a quality dependent on the capital ex- 
 pended by the tenant in the purchase of cattle food or 
 manures, and is, therefore, his property." But, as the 
 proverb has it, " Nature passes Nurture ; " and a soil 
 which is naturally fertile is better than one which is fer- 
 tile only by the help of manure. 
 
 ''The fertility of a soil may be expressed," according 
 
COMPOSITION AND FERTILITY OF THE SOIL. 25 
 
 to Caircl, ^* by examples taken, first, in the natural state 
 of pasture, and secondly, in similar soils after treatment. 
 The maximum of fertility in the natural state is a rich 
 pasture capable of fattening an ox and two sheep on an 
 acre. Such soils are exceptional, though in most counties 
 they are to be met with .... The minimum of fertility 
 may be exemplified by a bleak mountain pasture, where 
 ten acres will barely maintain a small sheep. 
 
 The artificial maximum or minimum which results 
 from the treatment of soils of the same quality is more 
 instructive, and may be clearly exemplified by taking two 
 of the experiments which have been carried on by Mr. 
 Lawes of Rothamsted for the last thirty years. Con- 
 fining the comparison to the average of the last twelve 
 years, the following was the weight in pounds of an 
 average crop : — 
 
 Corn, 
 lbs. 
 
 Wheat, grown continuously, without manure 730 
 
 " " ^' with special manure.. 2,340 
 
 The soils here are exactly similar and in the same 
 field, strong land on clay with a substratum of chalk. 
 The management is the same, in so far as culture is con- 
 cerned; both crops are kept equally clean and free from 
 weeds; the same seed is used, and they are exposed to the 
 same changes of weather. The only difference is, that in 
 the one case nature has for thirty years been unassisted 
 by manure, and in the other the soil receives every year 
 the various kinds of manure which have been found most 
 suitable to the crop. The result of this treatment is a 
 return of three times the weight of corn and four times 
 the weight of straw, for an expenditure of manure which 
 leaves a profit of one hundred per cent, on its cost. In 
 both cases the wheat is grown continuously year after year. 
 
 Exhaiistiou of Fertility.— The effect of continued 
 2 
 
 straw. 
 
 Total, 
 
 lbs. 
 
 lbs. 
 
 1,120 
 
 1,850 
 
 4,928 
 
 7,268 
 
26 THE SOIL OF TnE FARM. 
 
 cropping, without manuring, is to reduce the stock of 
 available fertility in the soil. But since it is the minimum 
 of any one essential ingredient and not the maximum of 
 the others which is the measure of fertility, it follows 
 that a soil which is exhausted for one plant may still 
 contain an abundant food suj^ply for a plant of another 
 kind. A rotation of crops will in such case defer the 
 period of exhaustion. But whatever the crops cultivated, 
 it is plain that continued croppmg without the use of 
 manures must ultimately bring us to a time when the 
 crops grown will no longer pay the cost of cultivation. 
 
 The particular substance on which the crops grown 
 have made the largest demands, and which was originally 
 most deficient in the soil, will be the first to become ex- 
 hausted. Further, the more available substances will be 
 removed while the less soluble will remain behind; a poor 
 soil will be reduced to sterility sooner than a rich one ; a 
 shallow soil will fail sooner than a deep one ; and a light 
 soil sooner than a stiff one. All soils, however, are ca- 
 pable of yielding annually from their stores of natural 
 fertility a certain amount of produce, and this constant 
 abstraction of their substance is not necessarily incon- 
 sistent with the maintenance of fertility ; for, indepen- 
 dently of the small quantity of vegetable food, so to 
 speak, available for use at any one time, an immense 
 store resides in most soils in a dormant condition, capable 
 of gradual development as it is required. 
 
 Restoration of Fertility, — As cropping removes these 
 substances from the soil, they are replaced more or less 
 rapidly and completely by the agencies of the weather. 
 The action of earth-worms is also useful m this respect, 
 for it is as soil-fertilizers rather than as soil-formers that 
 earth-worms are of imiiortance to auriculture. Indeed, 
 they are rarely met with in soils that are very destitute 
 of organic matter. The richer the soil, however, and 
 
COMPOSITION AKD FEETILITY OF THE SOIL. 27 
 
 the more it is manured, the more numerous they are. 
 Their action as soil-fertiHzers consists in swallowing 
 earth, leaves, and organic matter of all kinds, triturating 
 it, converting it, and then ejecting it over the surface of 
 the field. In this way they very soon effect a complete 
 mversion of the soil down to a certain depth, especially 
 on meadow land, which is left undisturbed to their opera- 
 tion. They even make additions to the soil by bringing 
 up fresh matter from the subsoil. Every time a worm is 
 driven by dry weather or any other cause to descend deep, 
 it brings to the surface, when it empties the contents of 
 its body, a few particles of fresh earth. At the same time 
 it fertilizes the subsoil, by opening up passages wiiich en- 
 courage the roots of plants to penetrate deeper, these 
 passages being lined with excreted matter which provides 
 a store of nourishment for the roots. On meadow land, 
 Darw^in found these worm-casts amount annually to 
 eighteen tons per acre, and on good arable land to about 
 ten tons. Dr. Gilbert has analysed worm-casts, and 
 found them to contain .34 per cent, of nitrogen, which 
 is several times more than is found m ordmarv soils. 
 Ten tons of these castings will thus yield eighty pounds 
 of nitrogen, or as much as is contained m two acres of a 
 wheat crop. 
 
 By various artificial means, tillage, drainage, clay- 
 burning, the application of lime, or manures, the pro- 
 cesses of natural soil-renovation may be greatly accel- 
 erated. And these are the subjects of the remaining 
 chapters of this book. But it is plain from the natural 
 influences, as well as the artificial operations, to which 
 soils are amenable, that there is hope for almost any 
 soil — that in few cases can land be so run out as to re- 
 quire the direct supply of all the substances which are 
 needed to create fertility, for many of them are already 
 pa-esent, and it only requires a little skillful management 
 to exhibit them. It is on this principle that we must ex- 
 
28 THE SOIL or THE FAKM. 
 
 plain the ])ractice, often to be seen, of allowing worn out 
 land to rest for a while after a long period of mismanage- 
 ment has exhausted its fertility. The success of this ex- 
 pedient, however, does not justify the practice, which is 
 obviously most wasteful both of time and means. The 
 amount of active fertility in the soil ought, by a judicious 
 system of cropping and consumption on the farm, to be 
 made nearly to reproduce itself year by year ; and the 
 gradual development of that which lies dormant, instead 
 of acting as a sinking fund to wipe out the evils of past 
 mismanagement would then go annually to increase the 
 fertility of the land. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 IMPROVEMENT OF SOILS. — DRAINAGE AND IRRI- 
 GATION. 
 
 Land-Drainage — objects, process, results, expense and profit.— Irrigation 
 — object aimed at, methods adopted, results. — Sewage irrigation. 
 
 Land Drainage. — AVhatever the composition or natural 
 capability of a soil, its fertility depends materially upon 
 its relations to the water which falls upon it. If the rain- 
 water has free access throughout it, free passage through 
 it, not only are ingredients added which the roots ab- 
 sorb for the nourishment of the plant, but these in- 
 gredients are available in the laboratory of the soil for 
 those purposes by which i)lantfo()d is manufactured from 
 the material of soil itself and from the manure added to 
 it ; and, above all, the full use is obtained of a necessary 
 carrier of ])1 ant food l)y the hungry moutlis — theabsorl)e«t 
 ends of root-Iibres to whith it must be brought. Upon 
 
IMPROVEMEIs^T OP SOILS. 29 
 
 the permeability, as well as on the composition of a soil, 
 its fertility is thus very materially dependent ; and land 
 drainage, eitlier natural or artificial, is essential to it. 
 
 When there is fn excess of water in a soil, and no pro- 
 yision exists for withdrawing it, the interstitial canals 
 become completely filled, to the exclusion of the necessary 
 amount of air on which the activity of the soil, considered 
 as a laboratory for the provision of plant food depends. 
 When the soil is drained, the superfluous water flows off 
 through the air canals, and only so much moisture is re- 
 tained as can be absorbed by the minuter pores within 
 the small particles of earth ; and as there is, then, free 
 communication through these canals between the pores 
 and the drains, it is evident that the water will all be 
 withdrawn from the soil except that which is held by 
 capillary attraction. Thus the rain, which falls upon 
 and is absorbed by the surface-ground, percolates towards 
 the drainage level, flushmg every crevice and canal in 
 its descent, leaving behind it the nutritive ingredients 
 which it carries in suspension or in solution, and on 
 which the plants can feed as it passes by their roots, or 
 which the soil, acting as a filter, extracts and appro- 
 priates. 
 
 The object of land-drainage is not merely to render wet 
 ground sufficiently dry for tillage operations, but so to 
 regulate the passage of moisture that, while the soil 
 shall have every facility for absorbing the necessary 
 quantity, stagnation, and the consequent starvation of 
 the plants, shall be prevented. Almost all lands require 
 it, in whole or in part, and there are few fields which 
 can be economically cultivated without draining some 
 portion of them. 
 
 The causes which wet the soil of any field requiring 
 drainaore must first be considered ; when these are under- 
 stood, it will be easy to decide upon the best means of 
 providing a remedy. But in this consideration the strata 
 
30 TnE SOIL or the farm. 
 
 of the district must be taken into account, as well as the 
 contonr of the surface, and the texture of the soil and 
 subsoil of the particular field. 
 
 If the surface of the ground be leyel/ and the structure 
 of the soil uniform, the drains may be arranged at regular 
 intervals apart, with the feeders at right angles to the 
 mains, and the necessary slojoe must be gained by cutting 
 upwards from a sufficiently deep outfall. In any case the 
 mains must be placed at the lowest level, delivering into 
 a ditch or brook, and the minor drains should run into 
 them in the direction of the inclination of the ground. 
 When the inclination of the surface varies, though there 
 should be sufficient fall for discharge if the drains were 
 cut throughout to a uniform depth, yefc it is necessary to 
 observe a sufficient uniformity of fall in the pipes to 
 hinder any risk of a deposit of mud in any part of their 
 course. 
 
 If the substrata consists of layers of various retentive 
 l")ower, their relative positions must be regarded in the 
 arrangement of the drains. Instead of following rigid 
 rules for fixing the proportionate depths and distances 
 of drains in light and heavy soils, we must determine 
 these points by reference to the thickness and order of 
 the substrata no less than by the character or texture of 
 the soil itself. 
 
 Practically these are determined by digging holes four 
 feet deep here and there in a field and taking a drain of 
 the intended depth up the field in their neigliborhood. 
 The holes will fill with water if the land needs draining ; 
 and the effect of the drain in emptying them at distances 
 of three, five, seven yards, etc., will indicate twice that 
 measure as the proper interval to be adopted between the 
 drains. 
 
 If the up]ier bed be retentive, and of such depth that 
 the drains cannot be cut completely throngh it, the best 
 system to ado2)t will be that of comparatively shallow 
 
IMPROYEMEN^T OF SOILS. 31 
 
 drains at close intervals ; and, on the contrary, a pervious 
 material should have deeper drains at Avider intervals. If 
 a thin bed of clay rests upon a porous substratum, the 
 drains may be cut into the latter, or through it, accord- 
 ing to its depth ; and they must then be laid at fre- 
 quent intervals. When the case occurs, as it sometimes 
 does, that a free supersoil, about three feet in depth, over- 
 lies a comparatively thin bed of clay, it is often advisable 
 to limit the depth of the drains to that of the porous 
 bed. When springs, which are fed from a higher level, 
 lie immediately below a clay substratum which exceeds 
 the practicable depth of the drains, recourse may be had 
 to tapping, by means of an auger-hole or vertical bore, 
 which will open communication to the drains, by which 
 the contents of the spring may be carried off, and the 
 liability to mischief caused by their bursting forth at a 
 lower level will be prevented. 
 
 The drainage of deep and wet boggy land is a gradual 
 process, requiring sometimes years of patience before 
 success is attained. Frequent open ditches should, at 
 first, be cut as deep as the sides will stand, and then 
 gradually deepened as the land subsides, taking care 
 always to keep them well cleaned out. When the land 
 has become sufficiently consolidated, the usual pipe 
 drains may be put in, but they should be laid rather be- 
 yond the depth which would be thought necessary in a 
 firmer soil of the same nature. If the moss will not 
 carry the ordinary pipes, it will be advantageous to use 
 collars with them, in order to prevent their displacement. 
 
 Marshes, and oven lakes, which occupy a bowl-shaped 
 cavity, rendering drainage by the ordinary means im- 
 practicable, have often been successfully drained by bor- 
 ing or digging through the impermeable surface layer 
 where it is not thick, and rests upon a porous substratum 
 of sufficient depth to receive the water and drain it from 
 the surface. But this method must not be tried without 
 
32 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 
 
 due attention to the disposition of the sectional strata of 
 the district, for the porous soil may be surcharged Avith 
 water from a higiier level, and the proposed cure might 
 only prove an aggravation of the existing evil. In tluit 
 case the object may be obtained by cutting a deep ditch 
 or canal through the bank on a level with the bottom of 
 the lake. 
 
 In ordinary practice it is the texture of the soil and 
 subsoil, and the nature or the slope, which determine 
 the proper depth and distance of drains. Deep drains 
 are longer in beginnmg to flow, but, if the soil is porous, 
 they will carry off the surface water, after heavy rains, 
 sooner than shallow drains. They also drain a greater 
 bulk of the soil, and allow the water time to deposit the 
 particles of mould and manure which it carries down from 
 the surface of the ground. 
 
 In an open soil, which the water penetrates freely, the 
 drain will draw from long distances if the depth is great; 
 but in stiff, compact soils, percolation is more difficult, 
 and the drains will draw from a smaller distance than in 
 free and open soils where the water finds a ready escape. 
 Ko amount of 'depth Avill compensate for excessive dis- 
 tance on a compact soil, because the material either re- 
 sists the passage of the water altogether, or the removal 
 is so slow that the drainage is worthless. 
 
 The requirements of vegetation must also be considered 
 in determining the proper depths of drains; and the 
 depths to which the rootlets of the plants penetrate may 
 afford some indication of how far the free sul)jacent water 
 should be permitted below the surface. As its availability 
 for their supply will be regulated by the porosity of the 
 soil, the bottom (5f the drains may be at a less distance 
 from the roots on a heavy soil than on a light one. In 
 dry summers, grass-land, especially, is sometimes liable 
 to injury, owing to the land being dried below the root- 
 
IMPROYEMEKT OF SOILS. 33 
 
 lets, which the capillary power of the soil is thus unable 
 to feed. 
 
 Another circumstance which will occasionally haye an 
 influence in regulating the depth, is the degree of slope 
 which can be obtained, according to the surface-levels of 
 the district. Theoretically, water will flow if there is 
 but the smallest possible deviation from a horizontal line, 
 but in j^ractice this is not sufficient, for it imjolies a 
 perfectly smooth and regular bed, a condition which can- 
 not be expected to exist in land-drains. The water 
 should not pass too quickly through the soil, before it 
 has time to deposit its nutritive ingredients, but neither 
 should it be allowed to stagnate, as it will do if the 
 drains are deeper than it can readily permeate, or if the 
 fall is insufficient to induce a free discharge. When the 
 drains are sufficiently active they will not allow the water 
 to stand for any length of time on the surface after the 
 most heavy rains. 
 
 For purposes of cultivation the drains should seldom, 
 if ever, be laid at a less depth than three feet from the 
 surface of the ground. In grass-lands two and one-half 
 feet may be sufficient, but where other circumstances are 
 favorable, three feet should be the minimum depth. 
 
 The laying of the pipes should be entrusted to a careful 
 workman, who is paid days' wages, as more attention in 
 the performance of the work is thus insured than when it 
 is done by the drainer at piece-work. 
 
 It is very important that the pij^es should be large 
 enough for the quantity of water they have to discharge. 
 If the fall is considerable, a pipe of less dimensions will 
 suffice than where the inclination is smaller. In j^ractice, 
 after the depth and interval of the intended drainage have 
 been determined bv trial holes in the manner described, 
 and after any particular sjorings of water have been dealt 
 with by special conduits taken through the wet spots 
 thus created, and after all old water channels have been 
 
34 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 
 
 furnish 0(1 with pipes laid at suflficieiit depths, and prop- 
 rly iillad in — the systematic drainage of a field which 
 needs the operation is begun at the lowest level in it. 
 The ditch is cleaned out by which the water is to escape. 
 The main drain is dug (from a point six to eight inches 
 above the botton of the ditch) along the lower edge of 
 the field parallel with its side, from which it may be 
 distant five yards or more, and as deep (to at least four 
 feet) as possible. Into this drain the minor drains de- 
 liver over the top of the four to six-inch pipes which 
 are placed in it. These minor drains, at the depth 
 which has been resolved upon, are taken right np the 
 slope, unless it be very steep, and two-inch pipes are 
 placed in them. If the field is more than two hun- 
 dred yards long, there should be a second main drain 
 crossing it midway of its length, into which the upper 
 series of minor drains deliver. The i^ipes should be 
 carefully placed and carefully covered with the earth 
 taken out. It is not necessary to put straw or turf over 
 them before the earth which has been taken out is re- 
 placed. If there is any considerable remainder of the 
 earth, it should be spread on the land, all stones being 
 removed ; and the turf, which in pastures has been first 
 dug out, should, as soon as the earth has settled suffi- 
 ciently, be replaced and rolled down ; and the work may 
 then be considered complete. It will often be possible 
 to economize the labor by sending a plow along the line 
 of each drain to turn out the first six inches, by horse- 
 power. A double furrow will be necessary to open up 
 the work efficiently ; and in the case of grass-lands the 
 plowing will be more effective if it be not too deep. 
 And then these furrow slices, thrown out on cither side 
 without being detached from the land, can be brought 
 together over the finished drain and rolled down. But 
 the operation cannot be considered com])lete without 
 careful provision for its permanence by a 2)ro2)erly built 
 
IMPROYEMEKT OF SOILS. 35 
 
 outfall. The last pipe of the main should pass through 
 brickwork whose foundation is laid below the level of 
 the bottom of the ditch, and it should be protected by a 
 flap or- gird. And the exit-water should fall from this 
 opening on to a slab of stone laid on the bottom of the 
 ditch, so as to hinder any risk of undermining the brick- 
 work by its continual fall. 
 
 The cost per acre of land-draining is more generally 
 covered by the consequent increased value of the land, 
 than that of any other agricultural improvement. What- 
 ever the interval or depth, the expense depends on the 
 character of the soil or subsoil, the local rate of wages, 
 the cost of the tiles, and the distance of the kiln. 
 
 In all cases it will be understood that the end desired 
 is the nearest possible approach to the natural examples 
 of the best soil resting on pervious subsoils, where the 
 rainfall finds a gradual passage through the soil and sub- 
 soil, sinking always where it falls, carrying the generally 
 warmer temperature of the air into the land — carrying 
 also many an element of plant food, which the air con- 
 tains, directly to the roots of plants — carrying, too, the 
 air itself, the great oxidizer, amidst the matters organic 
 and inorganic which require its influence for their con- 
 yersion into available plant food — proving, by its action 
 as a solvent, and its passage over the immense inner 
 superficies of the soil, an active caterer for the stationary 
 roots. At the same time it is hindered from doing the 
 mischief which on undrained land the rainfall cannot fail 
 of doing. The manure particles of the soil, if they do to 
 some extent escape through drainage, are at any rate not 
 washed wholesale from the surface into the furroAvs and 
 ditches, which in the case of undrained land receive 
 them without the subsoil having had a chance of retain- 
 ing them. 
 
 Irrigation* — This, which at first seems the exact con- 
 
36 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 
 
 yerse of land drainage, is but another example of tlie 
 fertilizing use of water when properly employed. In 
 both cases it is the passage of water through the soil 
 which is the object aimed at ; in both the water is useful 
 as a carrier of temperature and of various elements of 
 plant food ; in both the benefit is derived to some extent 
 from the increased activity induced in those chemical 
 processes within the soil by which i3lant food is derived 
 from the comparatively inert condition in which it nat- 
 urally lies. In both processes it is the stagnation of 
 water upon or in the soil which is the evil to be removed; 
 and there is rarely any good derived from irrigation un- 
 less it be accompanied by land drainage. Of course the 
 conditions under which the process is conducted are very 
 different in different climates, and in our temperate 
 climate we can hardly realize the advantage of irrigation. 
 In many tropical countries rain falls so seldom, and at 
 such lengthened intervals, that field irrigation affords 
 the only possible chance for the former to grow profitable 
 crops. In our own country it is not as the necessary pro- 
 vision in the absence of w^hicli the land would be barren, 
 but it is only as increasing the activity of the fertilizing 
 agencies already present that irrigation acts. 
 
 Soils suited to Irrig^ation, — Light porous soils, and 
 particularly gravels and sands, are most improved by 
 irrigation. Tenaceous and clay soils are seldom benefited 
 by it ; never, except in connection with thorough draining. 
 In all cases, indeed, the drainage of the land must pre- 
 cede its irrigation. The soil to be irrigated must be 
 in a condition enabling it to drain itself dry ; otherwise 
 irrigation, so far from proving a benefit, may be produc- 
 tive of the worst results. It is not only important that 
 water be brought into the ground ; it is equally imjiortant 
 that it should ]\ass off immediately after accomplishing 
 the object sought. 
 
IMPROYEMEKT OF SOILS. 37 
 
 All waters are suitable for irrigation except those con- 
 taining mineral substances deleterious to vegetable life — 
 such as the drainage from peat swamps and mineral 
 springs, etc. Water from a running stream or river is 
 generally superior to that from wells or springs ; the 
 former not only containing many salts which it has dis- 
 solved out of the soil or rocks as it j^assed over them, but 
 being also more richly freighted with bodies extracted 
 partly from the air, such as oxygen and ammonia. Of 
 spring and river waters, those denominated *'hard" are 
 the best, and owe this quality to the presence of sulphate 
 and carbonate of lime and magnesia. 
 
 Effects of Irrigation. — The first effect of water, when 
 made to flow over the soil, is to soften it and render 
 it more permeable to the roots of plants, and to the 
 air. Water acts still further in dissolving out the food, 
 and producing those chemical changes which must take 
 place in the manures before they are fitted for nourish- 
 ment. And owing both to this and to its conveyance of 
 fertile matters from a distance which are deposited on 
 the fields overflown, the mcrease from irrigation is some- 
 times four-fold, when the soil, the season, and the water 
 are all favorable ; and it is seldom less than doubled. 
 The quality of grass from irrigated meadows is but 
 slightly inferior to that grown upon dry soils ; and for 
 pasturage it is found that animals do better in dry seasons 
 upon the former, and in wet upon the latter. 
 
 Modes of Irrigating,— These must depend on the con- 
 ^ figuration of the surface, and the supply of water. Some- 
 times reservoirs are made for accumulating water from 
 rain and inundations ; but the usual source of supply is 
 from streams or rivulets, or copious springs which dis- 
 charge their water at a*level above the ground to be irri- 
 gated. The former are dammed up, to turn the water 
 
38 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 
 
 aside into ditches or aqueducts, tlirongh wliicli it is con- 
 ducted to the fields, where it is divided into smaller rills, 
 and finally spread over the surface, sinking into and 
 through the soil. When it is desirable to bring more 
 water upon meadows than is required for saturating the 
 ground, and its escape to fields below is to be avoided, 
 other ditches should be made at intervals upon the slope, 
 to arrest and carry aAvay the surface water. 
 
 Ridge-and-Furrow or Bed-Work System. — Where the 
 land is nearly level throughout its surface, it is laid out in 
 a series of ridges. Along the top of these the irrigating 
 channels are led, from which the water flows over either 
 side, being taken up by the furrows, which occupy the 
 hollows between the ridges. Erom the main conductor, 
 and at right angles to it, the various feeders are taken off. 
 These consist of smaller trenches four or five inches in 
 depth, made widest, say twelve or sixteen inches where 
 they issue from the main conductor, and gradually lessen- 
 ing as they recede from it. They may be formed at dis- 
 tances of ten yards or less; being made nearer on stiff soils, 
 and further apart where the soil is loose and porous. They 
 occupy the ridge lines of the lands in which the field is 
 laid, and the furrows in the hollows between these lands 
 communicate with a main surface drain, at the lower 
 part of the meadow. The drain conveys the water back 
 to the river from which it was taken ; or becomes in its 
 turn the main conductor to another meadow on a lower 
 level ; and in this way several meadows may be irrigated 
 by means of the same water. This is known as the Bed- 
 Work or Ridge-and-Furrow system. It is only suitable 
 to grass lands, and to land which has nearly a level 
 surface. 
 
 The Tatch-Work System. — On a sloping surface a dif- 
 ferent plan must be adoj^ted for the conveyance and dis- 
 
IMPROYEMEi^T OF SOILS. 39 
 
 tribution of the water. The feeders are not carried lon- 
 gitudinally down the meadow, but across the line of de- 
 scent. They are filled as before from a main conductor ; 
 but the water having overflowed the lower side of each, 
 is not discharged into smaller drains, as in the former 
 case, but into the next feeder lower down ; the purpose 
 of the catch-furrow being to cut off the rills into which 
 a surface liow is apt to collect, and re-start the overflow 
 evenly once more. The water is thus conveyed from 
 feeder to feeder until it reaches the main drain, at 
 the lower part of the field. This is termed the Catch- 
 "Work system, and as it can be adopted where the surface 
 is too much inclined to admit of bed-work, it is fre- 
 quently practicable where the other is not, and is often 
 combmed with it in the same meadow where there are 
 inequalities of surface. On arable hind the catch-work 
 system is best, as the bed-work w^ould be continually de- 
 stroyed. It is also less expensive to begin with than lay- 
 ing the land out in beds on the ridge-and-furrow system. 
 
 Time for applyinif Water to Meadows. — Where the 
 winters are not severe, water may be kept many days at 
 a time on the fields during the entire season of frosts. 
 This protects the grasses, which, on the approach of warm 
 weather, at once start into growth and yield an early and 
 abundant crojD. But in general this system cannot be 
 successfully practised. The water may be admitted, at 
 proper intervals, freely during the spring and early part of 
 the summer, when vegetation is either just coming, or is 
 going forward rapidly. It is sufficient to flood the sur- 
 face thoroughly, and then shut off the water for a time. 
 The water should be taken off before the grasses com- 
 mence ripening : indeed, the common use of the water 
 meadow in localities where the soil abounds in lime where 
 they are most useful, is in providing the earliest succu- 
 lent food for ewes and lambs, which are folded on them 
 
40 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 
 
 long before the grass throws up a flower stem. When 
 kept for hay, immediately after the grass is cut, the 
 water may be let in as occasion requires, during the 
 drouth of summer ; and pastures may be irrigated from 
 time to time as the weather may demand, throughout the 
 entire season. 
 
 Qmantity of Water Required for Irrigation.— As to 
 
 the quantity of water, it necessarily varies with the 
 nature and condition of the soil, with the character of 
 the subsoil, with the inclination of the surface, and with 
 the crops cultivated. In Italy, it is generally held that 
 the continued discharge of one cubic foot per second 
 during twenty-four hours, is sufficient for the irrigation 
 of four acres of meadow land. Hence, as the total volume 
 discharged in that time amounts to eighty-six thousand 
 four hundred cubic feet, and the area watered to one 
 hundred and seventy-four thousand two hundred and 
 forty square feet, it appears that a stratum of water equal 
 to nearly six inches in depth is in this, case spread over 
 the surface of the meadow. Twelve waterings are given 
 during the season, at intervals of fourteen days. The 
 above calculations assume, however, that the w^hole water 
 is absorbed by the soil, which is never the case. The 
 absorption in each watering in that case probably ranges 
 from half to one-third of the total quantity of water 
 em.ployed. 
 
 In English water-meadows the amount of water poured 
 over the land far exceeds this amount ; and the best effect, 
 when the water itself brings not only warmth but food, 
 is obtained where there is a continually moving thin layer 
 of water over the wdiole surface in addition to the quan- 
 tity which passes through the substance of the land to 
 the drains in the subsoil. 
 
 SewasfC Irrigation, by Avhich the greatest luxuriance 
 
IMPROVEMEIsrT OF SOILS. 41 
 
 of growth known to English agriculture is obtained, is 
 conducted generally on the ''Bed-work" system. The 
 most rapidly growing succulent crops, and Italian Rye- 
 gi'ass is the best of them all, are employed, and the water 
 IS poured on probably at the rate of four hundred tons 
 per acre, equal to a thickness of four inches of water, 
 during a few hours twice in the growth of a single crop 
 or cutting. The land being drained passes the whole of 
 this rich and fertilizing flood among the fibrous roots 
 of the plants by which its substance is permeated. And 
 a cutting of ten to fifteen tons weight per acre of the 
 grass is obtained as the result of not more than a month 
 or five weeks' growth. The land is soaked twice or thrice 
 at intervals of a fortnight after each cutting ; and four 
 or five cuttings of grass are thus obtained from the ap- 
 pliction of four or five thousand tons of the filthy water 
 in the course of the year. Here, as well as in ordinary 
 irrigation accompanied by land drainage, the result is 
 due to an added temperature, and an addition of plant 
 food, both of which the soil experiences, and especially 
 to the constant motion and passage of this food beside 
 and among the hungry roots of the ]olants which feed 
 upon it. 
 
42 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 IMPROVEMENT OF SOILS.— MIXING, CLAYING, LIMING, 
 CHALKING, MARLING, BURNING. 
 
 Mixing Soils : Clay, Sand, and Lime.— Claying : Process, Cost.— 
 Liming: Marling, Challiing. — Burning: Paring and Burning, 
 Stifle burning, Clay burning. 
 
 Mixing Soils. — Soils which possess conspicuous de- 
 fects 111 their physical and even in their chemical proper- 
 ties may in many cases be rendered fertile and productive 
 by a proper admixture. Loams, indeed, which are per- 
 haps the most productive kind of soils, are naturally j^ro- 
 duced in this way, being a mixture of sand and clay. 
 The nearer, therefore, we can bring a soil of a different 
 nature in approach to this character, the greater j^robably 
 will be its improvement. 
 
 When a soil is too clayey, it will be improved by an 
 application of sand or sandy loam; calcareous, sandy, and 
 peaty soils are equally benefited by the addition of clay; 
 while calcareous earth may be added to clays, sands, and 
 peats with the certainty of ultimate and permanent bene- 
 fit. There are thus at least four varieties of soil which 
 may be profitably improved by admixture, if circum- 
 stances are favorable. There is this, however, to remark 
 as limiting our ability in this respect — that it is only 
 those earths whose presence in comparatively small pro- 
 portion is sufficient that we can usefully apply. If land 
 be too stiff, it would probably need its sandy part to bo 
 doubled in order to make the land as friable and loose in 
 texture as is desired; and there might thus have to be an 
 addition of five-hundred tons of sandy loam per acre — a 
 labor whose cost is absolutely prohibitive. To double 
 the percentage of alumina in a very sandy soil, and thus 
 
IMPROYEMEKT OF SOILS. 43 
 
 strengthen its texture and improve it for every kind of 
 crop, need not involve the addition of more than fifty to 
 one-hundred cubic yards of marl or clay — an operation 
 which is quite within ordinary farm practice. In this 
 connection also it is necessary to ascertain the nature, 
 not only of the soil, but of the subsoil, the latter often 
 affording the readiest means of improving the former. 
 Where a vegetable or a sandy soil, for example, rests im- 
 mediately upon a substratum of clay which is near the 
 surface, the clay is often dug up and the surface top- 
 dressed with it. Oontrarywise, where the clay is upper- 
 most some good may sometimes be done by deepening 
 it and mixing it with the sandy layer below. Where the 
 soil and subsoil are similar in character and cannot be 
 used in that way, it may still happen that two soils of 
 opposite properties occur sufficiently near to one another 
 to be used for mutual improvement. 
 
 There are situations, however, where neither of these 
 advantages will be found to offer; the field, the farm, or 
 even the entire district maybe uniformly sandy or clayey; 
 and other alternatives than mixing must then be resorted 
 to. The light soils will probably be consolidated by 
 sheep-foldmg, and by heavy rollmg; while the strong 
 lands will be rendered more workable by having green 
 crops plowed under and by being heavily dressed with 
 caustic lime in addition to ordinary manurings. 
 
 The benefits of an admixture of soils are obviously two- 
 fold, the mechanical texture as well as the chemical com- 
 position of soils being altered and improved. A poor 
 sand, for instance, after an addition of clay or marl, is 
 rendered richer as well as stronger and more substantial, 
 so that plants thrive better in it, and a less quantity of 
 manure will suffice to afford a full crop. 
 
 Claying, as we have seen, may be usefully followed as 
 a practice to be adopted and repeated on sandy, peaty, and 
 
44 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 
 
 calcareous soils. The quantity necessary will depend on 
 the quality of the clay used, and on the character of the 
 soil to be improved. It will also, to some extent, be 
 regulated by the facilities for obtaining it, and by the 
 distance from which it is to be brought. If the clay has 
 to be carted from beyond the field, the operation will 
 be found laborious and expensive. It takes one-hundred 
 and thirty-four cubic yards to cover an acre an inch deep; 
 but this is a very heavy dose when we consider that the 
 ordinary depth of cultivation does not exceed six or eight 
 inches. The usual application varies from fifty to one- 
 hundred cartloads per acre. 
 
 The clay is spread upon the field before winter, so that 
 the frost may break it down and render it fit to be in- 
 timately mixed with the soil before working the land in 
 the spring. There are various methods of conducting 
 the operation. If the subsoil of the field supplies the 
 material, it is usual to open a number of deep furrows, at 
 twelve or twenty yards apart; and as the clay is dug out 
 it is spread equally over the surface within range, so as to 
 cover the whole interval. When the distance is greater, 
 the plank and wheelbarrow will afford the readiest and 
 most economical means of working u]^ to the point where 
 carts would have to be employed. In extensive operations 
 of this nature, especially where the material to be api)lied 
 is situated at the end of the field to be operated on, or 
 beyond it, the work may be done by means of small 
 trucks and a portable railway readily laid. 
 
 The cost of the process necessarily varies with the 
 nature of the material, the quantity applied, and the dis- 
 tance to be carted, etc. A dressing of clay will cost more 
 per cubic yard than a dressing of sand, when the latter is 
 a desirable a])])lication, from the difficulty with which in 
 the former case the manual jiortion of the labor is per- 
 formed. 
 
IMPROYEMEKT OF SOILS. 45 
 
 Liming is useful laot only as adding a necessary element 
 to soils deficient in it, not only as constituting a mellow- 
 ing and ameliorating agency in respect of the texture of 
 the soil, but also as supplying an imj^ortant agency in 
 yegetable soils, and especially in clay soils, in the general 
 chemistry ©f the land on which the provision of plant 
 food depends. In marling especially, as well as in liming 
 proper, it is the calcareous element which is the most ac- 
 tive of the elements supplied. In the latter, of course, it 
 is the clay which gives the marl its characteristic texture, 
 and renders it adapted especially for the lighter and more 
 Yegetable kind of soils. The claying, which has added 
 so much to the fertility of the Fens of Cambridgeshire 
 and Lincolnshire across the water in England, owes its 
 fertilizing influence, to a considerable extent, to the lime 
 which it contains. 
 
 Chalking", — This is a common practice on the edge of 
 chalk districts on clav soils, and wherever lime is deficient 
 in the soil, is«found beneficial, both as improving the tex- 
 ture and as adding plant food directly to the land. Some 
 of its fertilizing influence is no doubt due to the small 
 quantity of phosphoric acid which it sometimes con- 
 tains ; and its influence on the soil and its contents is of 
 the same kind as that of caustic lime, though less ener- 
 getic. 
 
 The chalk is carried on to the field perhaps eighty to 
 hundred cubic yards per acre, set down from the carts in 
 little heaps four or five yards apart, thereafter spread and 
 left to the influences of a winter frost, which disintegrates 
 the mass and enables its moie perfect mixture with the 
 soil. 
 
 Parins^ and Burning. — This was at one time a common 
 method of breaking up old sward in some countries of the 
 old world, but, except m a few districts, the practice has 
 
46 THE SOIL OF THE FAEM. 
 
 fallen into disuse. There is, liowevcr, no quicker or 
 better way of bringing an old turf into tilth. It saves 
 time, and ahvays ensures a crop, and a good one. This 
 is easily accounted for. It liberates plant food from the 
 minerals of the soil ; it purifies, sweetens, and cleanses 
 the soil, breaking up and driving out injunious acids, 
 destroying grubs and parasites cf various kinds which 
 prey upon both crops and cattle, and killing the seeds 
 and roots of weeds ; and it improves the mechanical tex- 
 ture of clay soils. The loss of nitrogen which occurs 
 through burning, will be amply made wp by subsequent 
 liberal management in all cases where the mechanical 
 texture of the soil does not suffer ; and injury would ul- 
 timately result only in the case of a few sandy soils. 
 
 The surface of the land is taken off to a depth of two 
 or three inches by the j)aring plow, or with the breast-plow 
 — a paring tool on a long shaft with broad horizontal 
 T-handles shoved horizontally by thrusts from the thighs, 
 which are protected by wooden shields strapped to them. 
 When the weather is dry, the turf will be ready to burn 
 in a fortnidit. A little straw or wood is taken to becrin 
 with. Then drier bits of turf are put on tlie fire. As 
 the heap burns, more turf is carefully put round against 
 the openings whence the smoke issues. This goes on, the 
 heap continually growing in size, and the burning going 
 on inside, though there never appears any blaze. After 
 the first fires are well lighted, they serve to light all the 
 other heaps, and no more straw is wanted. AVlien all the 
 heaps are lighted, the workman goes from heap to heap 
 adding turf until the whole is burnt or charred. 
 
 A good deal has lately been taught us about the con- 
 servative influence of the living plant, whether crop or 
 weed, on the fertilizing contents of the soil. Nevertheless, 
 as a bit of good practical farming, we venture to recom- 
 mend the practice of ])ai"ing and burning stubbles in the 
 autumn. If set about as soon as the corn is cleared off 
 
IMPROVEMEi^T OP SOILS. 4? 
 
 the fields, no em2:)loyment of men and horses at that time 
 will pay better. The land gets an effectnal cleaning, 
 snch as will be a check on Aveeds throughont the entire 
 rotation. Plant food is at the same time set free. The 
 soil is, moreover, brought at onco to a fine tilth ; and, if 
 soYv^n immediately, the land may be covered with a vigor- 
 ous growing and useful catch-crop in less time than would 
 have sufficed to clean it without burning. The crop is 
 usually consumed on the land ; but, if organic matter is 
 required m the soil, it may be plowed in as green ma- 
 nure. In either case the land will be covered during 
 winter, and loss by drainage jn-e vented ; it will be direct- 
 ly enriched by sheep-foldmg or green-manuring, and it 
 will be in the most favorable condition, both as regards 
 cleanness and tilth, in the sjiring. 
 
 The work is commenced by broad-sharing the stubbles 
 twice over in opposite directions, to a depth of about three 
 inches. This is harrowed. Then, when all is dry, horse 
 and hand rakes bring the loose soil and weeds into heaps 
 for burning. Straw is only used, when necessary, to 
 start the first fires with. When the heaps are half burned 
 through, the clods are raked up towards the fire, and 
 fresh earth put on the top. This is repeated the last 
 thing at night. Next morning, if all has been properly 
 managed, the bulk of the heaps will be sufficiently burned 
 to have killed all vegetable and animal life that was con- 
 tained in them. After this, the fire requires a little 
 trimming and tucking up to complete the work. The 
 heaps may be made to contain as much as forty bushels 
 each ; and forty such heaps per acre, when spread and 
 plowed in, often have an effect on the subsequent crop 
 equal to a dressing of dung or guano. The burning, 
 especially on calcareous clays, shows its good effects for 
 several years, and the land is tilled at less cost by reason 
 of its working more easily. 
 
48 THE SOIL OF THE FAEM. 
 
 Clay- Burning. — Stiff clays are often surface-burned, in 
 the manner described above, with the object of amchorat- 
 ing their texture and rendering them more workable. 
 The fertility of the soil is greatly increased at the same 
 time, especially in the case of calcareous clajs. 
 
 Cobbett recommends not to burn the land which is to 
 be cultivated, but other earth for the pur2')0se of getting 
 ashes to be brought on the land ; and he advocates burn- 
 ing within v/alls of turf or earth, instead of in heaps 
 above-ground. As he points out, the princijilc of clay- 
 burniug is slow combustion, and this you are sure to ef- 
 fect if you can check it by addition to the heap. "When 
 the heap is fairly alight, put on more clay wherever the 
 smoke appears, but not too much at a time. This is con- 
 tinued until the heap is large enough, when the fire is 
 allowed to extinguish itself. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 SUB-SOILING, TRENCH PLOWING, TILLAGE OPER- 
 ATIONS. 
 
 SuBSOiT. Plowing : Deepenins: and Stirring;.— Trench Plowing. — Til- 
 lage OrEUATiuNs: Plowiuj^, Cultivating, Rolling, Steam-plowing. 
 —Depth of Tillage.— Stubble Cleaning. 
 
 These operations tend to loosen the hard earth below 
 the reach of the ordinary plow, and to facilitate the 
 escape of water from the surface ; they promote the cir- 
 culation of air, and afford a more extended range for the 
 roots of tlie plants, by wliich they obtain additional 
 nourishmenc ; and tliey secure the crops against droutli, 
 by ciial)ling them to penetrate into the region of perpetual 
 moisture. 
 
suB-soiLixG, tre:nch plowing, tillage. 49 
 
 Subsoil Plowifl*?. — The ultimate object of this oper- 
 ation IS, of course, the deepening of the soil and loosen- 
 ing the subsoil. This invariably follows from opening 
 the subsoil to the ameliorating influence of the elements; 
 and the beneficial result is due to the accumulation of 
 vegetable matter below the ordinary range of the soil by 
 the roots penetrating deeper and being left to decay in 
 the bed where they have grown. The subsoil plow 
 merely stirs and opens the subsoil : it does not turn a 
 furrow. A common plow goes before, throwing out a 
 large open furrow-slice of the active soil; the subsoil 
 plow follows, entering to a depth of six or eight inches 
 below the bottom of the surface furrow ; and the next 
 furrow of active soil is thrown over the last opened fur- 
 row of the sub-soiler. 
 
 The subsoil implement requires to be drawn by four 
 or more horses, according to the nature of the soil and 
 the depth of working. 
 
 Though of great benefit on land which is sufficiently 
 dry, subsoilmg does more harm than good on wet lands. 
 It is, therefore, only to be employed as an auxiliary to 
 draining, and not as a substitute for it. Some time must 
 elapse, however, between draining and subsoiling. When 
 properly done it increases nearly every good effect of 
 underdraining. Especially does it diminish injury by 
 drouth, by loosening the soil and admitting air to cir- 
 culate among the particles of the subsoil and deposit its 
 moisture. It deepens the soil, and renders available 
 matters v/hich are perhaps deficient in the surface soil. 
 It also improves the drainage. 
 
 Trench or Deep Plowing. — This is advantageous to 
 such lands as are of the same nature to a considerable 
 depth. For those lower parts of the soil, which have 
 become filled with manure which the rains have carried 
 down below the surface, are thus thrown up, to contrib- 
 3 
 
50 THE SOIL OF TKE FARM. 
 
 ute to the nourishment of crops. Deep jilowing is also 
 useful on thin lands where the upper layer is too clayey 
 and comi^act, and rests upon a hed of sand or limestone. 
 By plownig deep, the sand or Hme is mixed with the clay 
 above, rendering it more fertile than it could be made by 
 any other means. There are, however, cases m which, 
 from the defective composition of the subsoil, or other 
 causes, it does more harm than good. Good effects can 
 only be obtained from trench plowing when the chemical 
 composition of the lower soil is such as to supj^ly m in- 
 creased quantity the essential constituents of plant 
 growth. 
 
 Where the subsoil is inferior, the deejDening of the soil 
 must be made a gradual operation, and a very small 
 quantity of the raw material brought to the surface at a 
 time. The sub-soiler effects this object much better than 
 the trench plow, as in the former case the subsoil is 
 opened up and exposed to the weathering action of the 
 atmosphere without bringing it abruptly to the surface. 
 
 ORDINARY TILLAGE OPERATIONS. 
 
 "Whatever the physical or chemical properties of the 
 soil may be, it will produce but little if not well tilled. 
 And what is true in this respect of the best soil, applies 
 in far stronger terms to the worst. 
 
 Apart from its immediate end, the provision of a 
 proper seed-bed, the objects and effects of tillage may be 
 enumerated thus : — 
 
 (1) To stir and loosen the entire soil to a sufficient 
 
 depth : so that the roots of i)lunts may freely 
 extend themselves in search of food. 
 
 (2) To pulverize the soil and mix thoroughly its 
 
 constituent parts, so as to increase its absor- 
 bent and retentive powers, and to effect an 
 c<|ual and economical distribution of manure. 
 
SUB-SOILIKG, TRENCH PLOWIi^G, TILLAGE. 51 
 
 (3) To destroy weeds and foreign plants, whicli rob 
 the crop of food and check its growth. 
 
 Let us add that, by opening the soil, and rendering it 
 permeable to air and water, the inert materials contained 
 m it, both organic and inorganic, are convertible into 
 soluble plant food. And m regard to many of the insects 
 which prey upon our crops, especially such as work 
 beneath the soil at the roots of plants, frequent tillage is 
 found to disturb them and bring them to the surface 
 where they get picked up by birds. 
 
 Tillage operations include all soil operations which 
 apply directly to the cultivation of farm crops — plow^ing, 
 cultivating, harrowing, and rolling, or whatever else is 
 done to bring land to a proper state to receive the seed. 
 They also include the operations of hoeing and weeding 
 the ground after it is planted. 
 
 Plowing. — In plowing we break up the ground into 
 furrow slices, turning them over in such a manner that a 
 new surface is presented to the atmosphere. This or some 
 other mode of loosening and turning up the under parts 
 of soils is necessary to fit them for the reception of the 
 seed and the growth of crops. 
 
 The object of plowing being to expose the upturned 
 soil to the atmosphere and to create the greatest quantity 
 of mould the furrow-slices can produce, it follows that 
 the furrow -slice which shows the greatest surface will 
 answer these ends most effectually. In the case of a 
 square cut furrow-slice this is found to result when it is 
 laid at an angle of forty-five degrees; and to this end 
 its width must be to its depth as about ten to seven. 
 If the furrow-slices are ragged, open, and broken, and 
 if, being cut of vai-ious depths and widths, they are laid 
 at different heights, the work is inferior. A uniform 
 depth of tilth cannot then be provided by the harrow, 
 and the seed will be unequally buried. 
 
52 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 
 
 On lea ground the furrow is usually eight to ten inches 
 in breadth by five to seven in depth. The medium depth 
 of good plowing is six or seven inches. Shallower 
 plowing is often inevitable on thin soils, while on deep 
 land the stubble furrow may be ten inches or more in 
 depth. 
 
 The term ^^feering" is applied to the commencement 
 or opening of a land or ridge; and the process varies 
 according to the state of the land to be plowed. On 
 lea ground, as also on stubble land, there is generally an 
 old furrow to go by, in which case two shallow furrow- 
 slices are then turned, the one against the other; and 
 along each side of this commencement the plowing 
 moves. On turnip land, or where there is no old furrow 
 to turn the first furrow-slices into, two furrows are thrown 
 out, and then turned lightly in as before. The plowing 
 goes on in this direction, the horses always turning to 
 the right-about at the end of the furrows until half of 
 the land or ridge is plowed. The plowing so far has 
 been what is technically called •' gathering." At this 
 stage, however, a second feering is commenced, and the 
 same order followed until another half land has been 
 gathered. Thus, if the distance between the two feerings 
 was ten yards, five yards would be gathered in each case, 
 and five yards of unplowed land still lie between them. 
 In order to plow out this, the plowman now alters his 
 course, and turns ahvays to the left-about at both ends, 
 laying furrow after furrow towards the inside of each 
 feering, until the two plowed lands meet. This is known 
 as ^^ casting," '' cleaving," or '^splitting." On all but 
 lea ground the open furrows ultimately left are usually 
 turned in by running the plow once or twice back ui)on 
 the last turned furrows. After this, the seed harrows 
 take out all traces of the open furrows, and leave the 
 land entirely level. 
 
 I( is, in t^onic districts, a common practice to move only 
 
SUB-SOILIIs^G, TREi^CH PLOWIKG, TILLAGE. 53 
 
 one half the land at certain seasons by plowing each 
 furrow-slice on to its own width of unmoved soil. This, 
 W'hich IS called '^ raftering, " is sometimes done in the 
 case of foul land to enable the harrow to deal perfectly 
 with one half of the soil at a time. It is also a common 
 practice to rib clay land before winter by plowing two 
 furrow-slices together over an intervening width of about 
 twelve inches — thus creating a ridgelet thirty inches 
 wide on which the frost can exert its disintegrating 
 effect. 
 
 The points of merit in plowing are — (1) a straight 
 furrow of uniform width and depth; (2) a clean cut slice, 
 both on its land side and floor; (3) a well laid furrow- 
 slice, having regard to compactness and form; (4) com- 
 plete burial of the grass or stubble turned in; (5) a 
 uniformly plowed ridge; (6) a finish showing an open 
 furrow with a clean narrow bottom, the last furi'ow- 
 slice being equal in width and height with the others. 
 
 Many calculations have been made to prove the waste 
 of time consequent upon short furi'ows. Under average 
 circumstances a pair of horses will plow an acre of grass 
 land in a day of nine hours. On turnip land of the 
 same quality rather more than an acre will be plowed in 
 a day, and on stubble land one and one-quarter acre. 
 A considerable difference will, of course, be found in 
 the work accomplished by different horses and men, even 
 on the same land. With a furrow nine inches wide, ex- 
 actly eleven miles are travelled in plowing an acre. A 
 quarter of the day or more is generally used in turning at 
 the headland. 
 
 Cnltivatinj? or Stirrina:, — The cultivator merely stirs 
 the soil and does' not turn it over like the plow; but it 
 can work to an equal depth. It is especially useful in 
 a spring fallow after autumn plowing, as the winter- 
 weathered tilth IS thereby retained on the surface, and 
 
54 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 
 
 the moisture of the soil is less evaporated than when the 
 land is s^n'ing plowed — a point of tlie first importance in 
 turnip cultivation. It is also much used in jDrejDaring 
 light land just cleared of roots for being sown with sj^ring 
 grain and seeds, as it furnishes a fine mould and keeps the 
 manure near the surface. Fitted with broad points, and 
 worked at a shallower depth, the cultivator is the most 
 effective implement m use for stubble cleaning after har- 
 vest. The substitution, when possible, of the cultivator 
 for the plow is attended with a considerable saving, both 
 of time and labor. 
 
 Cultivators are adajoted for either two or four horses, 
 though the same implement which can be worked with 
 ease by two horses on a light soil or at a shallow depth, 
 will often require three or four horses on stiff land, or 
 where deeper working has to be practised. If the nature 
 of the soil and work admits of it, however, two horses in 
 a light cultivator will do more than half the work of four 
 yoked to a larger implement, as they step more freely and 
 with greater ease to themselves. On light land, a two- 
 horse cultivator should work live acres of fallow to a 
 depth of about six inches, and four acres to a less depth 
 on land where roots have been fed off; on stiff land, or 
 working to a greater depth, a three or four-horse cul- 
 tivator would do about six acres in a day. 
 
 Harrowini? (1) pulverizes the soil to a depth of two or 
 three inches, and reduces to fineness the surface clods and 
 lumps that are left after plowing, cultivating, or digging; 
 (2) it shakes out and separates the weeds that are in the 
 soil; (3) it smooths surface inequalities, by which means 
 the seed is more evenly deiDosited, and is more likely to 
 have a uniform germination ; and (4), after the seed is 
 sown, the harrow buries it at a moderate dei)tli beneatli 
 tlie surface. AVe might add a fifth use ; for it is in many 
 cases a good practice to harrow the winter-sown wheat 
 
SUB-SOILING, TRENCH PLOWING, TILLAGE. 55 
 
 in spring, and break up the weathered pan upon the 
 surface. 
 
 The usual direction of harrowing after seed is sown is 
 first along the furrows, then across, and finally along 
 again. The quantity of land harrowed in a day depends 
 in a measure on the kind of harrowing as well as on the 
 kind of harrow used, and on the nature of the soil. A 
 two-horse set of ordinary harrows covers, usually, a width 
 of seven and a-half feet. That is equal to ten nine-inch 
 furrows with the plow ; so that if the teams trayelled at 
 the same pace, a pair of horses ought to harrow as much 
 land in one day as they could plow in ten. But horses, 
 as a rule, travel a good deal faster, and consequently 
 farther when harrowing than when plowing. It follows, 
 therefore, that if a plow, travelling at the rate of eleven 
 miles a day, with a nine-incli furrow, turns over exactly 
 one acre of land, a set of harrows, covering ten times the 
 width of a nine-incli furrow, and travelling one-fourth to 
 one-third faster than the plow, must get over twelve or 
 thirteen acres a day : that is, when giving one turn of the 
 harrow, or a single tine, as it is called. With a double 
 turn, only half that quantity of land would be covered in 
 a day. These are average quantities on average land. 
 
 Rollin.!^ (1) breaks those clods or lumps which have 
 resisted the action of the harrow ; (2) it presses down 
 surface stones, etc., so as to be out of the way of the 
 scythe or reaping machine ; (3) it gives a greater degree 
 of compactness to soil which is too light and friable, 
 making it firmer around the roots of plants, and at the 
 same time a less favorable breeding-ground for many 
 kinds of insects ; while the smoother surface presents 
 fewer points of .evaporation ; (4) it presses down and 
 makes firm the ground about newly-soon seeds ; and some- 
 times (5), when very small seeds are to be sown, it is well 
 to roll the ground first, so as to level it thoroughly and 
 
56 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 
 
 facilitate a more equal distribution of the seed than could 
 otherwise take i)lace ; (6) it is used to press into the 
 ground the roots of those plants sown in the preceding 
 autumn w4iich have been detached by frost. 
 
 A spring rolling on a field of winter grain will often, 
 by firming the soil about its roots, save the crop ; and it 
 is equally beneficial in a similar way on grass lands. On 
 light soils the loosening effects of frequent freezing and 
 thawing are more or less avoided by an autumn rolling. 
 Grass land cannot be too heavily rolled ; and on all light 
 lands under tillage the use of the roller is indispensable 
 for closing the pores and preventing the evaporation of 
 moisture. 
 
 But while rolling is of much benefit on light, porous, 
 and lumpy soils, it is injurious on w^et clays, except in 
 dry weather, when they are lumpy after plowing. Soil- 
 ing a stiff soil when wet renders it more difficult of cul- 
 tivation, by pressing the particles still more closely 
 together, and preventing the admission of air. Even 
 light arable lands require the ground to be dry when 
 rolled, if for no other reason than that otherwise the soil 
 will adhere to the roller. Grass land, however, is best 
 rolled in showery weather. 
 
 Using the same power in each case, more land will be 
 rolled in the same time on grass than on a wheat seed-bed; 
 and more on a wheat seed-bed than on rough fallow land. 
 A light one-horse roller, covering about six feet m width, 
 will get over twelve to thirteen acres on grass land, ten 
 acres on a wheat seed-bed, and eight or nine acres on fal- 
 low land, in a working day of ten hours. A two-horse 
 roller should get over twelve to fifteen acres on grass, ten 
 to twelve acres on a wheat seed-bed, and ten acres on 
 fallow. A clod-crusher, drawn by three horses, will ac- 
 complish six to eight acres per day. 
 
 Hoeing. — This operation is proceeded with while the 
 
SUB-SOILIJTG, TREKCH PLOWING, TILLAGE. 57 
 
 crop is growing, and it fulfills two important objects. 
 First, it extirpates weeds and keeps the land clean ; and 
 secondly, it stirs, loosens, and pulverizes the surface soil. 
 The extirpation of weeds is of course indispensable to 
 good cultivation. But the second 23rinciple of hoeing is 
 if possible still more important. Deep and continuous 
 hoeing is wonderfully eifective in promoting the growth 
 of plants. It prevents the soil reverting to its natural 
 solidity, admits air and water, and by breaking and sub- 
 dividing it, causes it to retain moisture and to j) resent 
 innumerable surfaces and fresh particles to the young 
 roots. The effect is visible in the faster growth of the 
 plants every time the earth is stirred about them. 
 
 Hoeing, however, can only be practised in the case of 
 crops in drills or in hills. Broadcast work is thus incom- 
 patible with thorough cultivation, even in the case of 
 gram crops. If horse-hoeing is intended among the 
 grain crops, the drilling should corresi3ond with the 
 horse-hoe to be used. Drilling is equally indispensable 
 to all hand-hoeing. 
 
 Steam CisUlvatlon. — In many cases tillage by the 
 wealthy farmer may, m part at least, be advantageously 
 performed by steam power. It (1) gives cheaper, deeper, 
 and more efficient tillage than horse power ; it (2) ena- 
 bles the work to be done with rapidity and at the best sea- 
 son ; it (3) enables land to be more quickly and effectually 
 cleaned and kept free from weeds ; it (4) promotes good 
 drainage by rendering tenacious soils more friable and 
 porous ; and it (5) not only effects a considerable diminu- 
 tion in the number of horses, but, by relieving tliem of 
 their heaviest work, enables you to keep those which are 
 still necessary at less expense. 
 
 Of the two mam systems of cultivating by steam, the 
 double-engine system necessarily involves the largest out- 
 lay to begin with ; but where the farm is large enough to 
 
58 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 
 
 afford a reasonable amount of work for the tackle, it will 
 cultivate at a less cost per acre than the single engine tackle. 
 
 Depth of Cultivation. — The proper depth at which to 
 cultivate must depend chiefly upon the nature and con- 
 dition of the soil, though partly also upon the kind of crop 
 to he grown. ^Vet lands should not be plowed deep 
 until they have been thoroughly drained. Alluvial soils 
 and deep clay loams, where the surface and subsoils do not 
 materially differ, can scarcely be tilled too deep. Thin 
 soils, however, should not for present profit be plowed 
 below the layer of mould; but their ultimate fertility 
 and capacity may be greatly increased by subsoiling and 
 heavy manuring for a series of years. It takes twice as 
 much manure to fertilize land Avhen it is plowed to a 
 depth of ten inches as when it is plowed five inches ; 
 and the converse is equally true — that by plowing only 
 five inches the soil will be exhausted much quicker than 
 when the plowing is ten inclies. But whether it in- 
 volves the necessity of additional manure or not, a tillage 
 depth of six to ten inches is vastly preferable to a less 
 depth. Von Thaer estimated that each inch of mould 
 between six and ten inches increased the value of the soil 
 eight per cent. 
 
 The importance of deep tillage may be inferred from 
 the great depth to which the roots of some plants will 
 penetrate the soil, when conditions favor their doing so. 
 And a deep soil is as beneficial for the supply of moisture 
 during dry weather, as to give room for the roots of plants 
 to extend themselves. Further, the deeper stratum not 
 only renders the soil less subject to drouth, but it makes 
 it a better retainer of heat, and furnishes abetter medium 
 for the action of all the agents engaged in promoting the 
 vigorous growth of plants. 
 
 Deep and thorough tillage, tlierefore, is to be extolled as 
 a general principle. Still, while it is useful to all crops, 
 
SUB-SOILIXG, TREJ^CH PLOWIXG, TILLAGE. 59 
 
 it is of more direct imj)ortance to some j^lants than to 
 others. Root and green crops are the ones which benefit 
 most directly by deep cultivation of the soil. As these 
 crops usually follow grain crops, it thus becomes desirable 
 to give the deepest tillage on the grain stubbles. When 
 the land has been plowed or cultivated deej) in preparing 
 for the green crop, deep stirring for the subsequent crops 
 of the rotation may be not only unnecessary but often in- 
 jurious, as being unsuited to the habit of growth of the 
 plant under cultivation. 
 
 Amount of tillage requisite. — Good husbandry gives 
 to every soil and crop its proper tilth. The stiffest and 
 poorest soils require the greatest amount of tillage. Light 
 soils, however, are rarely over-cultivated. As Tull, in his 
 philosophy of tillage, has pointed out, much plowing and 
 pulverizing of a naturally light soil will not make it more 
 loose and open, but have the contrary effect, making its 
 natural porousness less, and its density greater. 
 
 It is possible, of course, to have a soil too loose, for it 
 must have a certain consistency to retain moisture and 
 support plants ; but too great looseness is a rare fault, and 
 one not without its remedy. By harrowing the land while 
 it is still damp, and by heavy rolling as it becomes drier, 
 the necessary degree of firmness may always be obtained. 
 
 The soil is more frequently too open ; but that indicates 
 either a want of sufficient tillage or an injudicious apj)li- 
 cation of it. In dry weather clay soils are brought to the 
 finest tilth with the least labor, by harrowing immediately 
 after plowing or cultivating, and accompanying this op- 
 eration, when necessary, with the use of the roller. In a 
 similar season, lio-ht and drv soils must be sown and fin- 
 ished up as quickly as possible after plowing. In a wet 
 season, the best tilth is obtained by harrowing when the 
 soil IS in the stage *' twixt wet and dry." 
 
 The mechanical condition of a good seed-bed should be 
 
60 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 
 
 regulatecl more by the kind of crop to be grown than by 
 the character of the soil. AVe know the importance of a 
 solid bottom and a fine surface for barley. Nor will 
 wheat and oats grow in a yery loose subsoil, though a 
 fine top is of less consequence, to wheat at least. Root 
 crops, on the other hand, require a seed-bed which is 
 neither firm nor loose, but fine and deep. Grasses and 
 clovers flourish best on a firm hard soil with a fine 
 surface. 
 
 Stubble cleanini? and autumn cultivation,— The two 
 
 great objects of tillage, pulverization of the soil and 
 destruction of weeds, are greatly facilitated by stubble 
 cleaning and autumn cultivation. 
 
 As the weeds are in their weakest condition just after 
 the grain is harvested, that is the time to attack them. 
 The most effectual plan of doing so is to cultivate the 
 stubbles. Previous to this, however, deep-rooted weeds, 
 like the dock, should be pulled ; and couch-grass, where 
 it occurs in patches, should be forked out by hand. 
 Then the broad-share cultivator may be run over the 
 field, taking care not to cut the roots of the remaining 
 weeds, but to cut under them, and so to loosen the soil, 
 and the hold of the weeds upon it, that they can be 
 shaken out by the harrows and gathered into heaps. It 
 is not necessary to burn the weeds if there is any objec- 
 tion to that plan. They miglit be left on the ground, if 
 dead, to decompose; but as that will interfere with the 
 work which has to go on, a compost may be formed of 
 the weeds with quick-lime, road-scrapings, etc. The 
 quick-lime, if used in the proportion of one-eighth, will 
 speedily decompose the weeds, and the compost will be 
 ready to apply to the land in the spring. 
 
 Pulverization of tlie surface soil will bo broue^ht about 
 by these operations, but clay soils, generally, will be 
 further benefited by deep plowing and exposure to win- 
 
SUB-SOILII^G, TRENCH PLOWIJTG, TILLAGE. 61 
 
 ter weather and frosts. The autumn tillage, however, 
 as well as that at other seasons, should conform with the 
 requirements of the cropping which is to follow. 
 
 Keeping the soil covered, — Land is not cleaned and 
 tilled with the object of being left bare. Let, therefore, 
 the stubble cleaning and autnmn tillage be done early 
 enough to admit of a catch-crop, if not a regular winter 
 crop being sown. The Eothamsted experiments have 
 clearly demonstrated the desirableness of this course. 
 When there is no vegetation, or even when there is veg- 
 etation, during excessive drainage, nitric acid is lost in 
 large quantity through the drains. The remedy for this 
 is to sow the newly-cleaned stubbles with clover, mustard, 
 rape, winter rye, or, in mild climates, to plant cab- 
 bages. The catch-crop will pay well for growing, and 
 the land will be clean after its removal m spring. It will 
 then require comparatively little labor to prepare the 
 soil for the summer crop ; whereas, when all the clean- 
 ing remains to be done at that period, it is so laborious 
 and difficult that it is seldom well done, while the proper 
 season for sowing is often lost through the work not be- 
 ing accomplished in time. Nor must it be forgotten that 
 keeping the soil covered is not everything ; for, as Sir 
 J. B. Lawes points out, the power of vegetation to utilize 
 the nitric acid in the soil is much diminished if there be 
 a deficiency of available mineral constituents. This de- 
 ficiency is to be prevented or made good by stubble clean- 
 ing, autumn plowing, and exposure of the soil ; and fer- 
 tility is to be retained by concurrent good management 
 in cropping. 
 
 Water-furrowing. — It is of the utmost importance in 
 the cultivation of stiff soils, whether they be under- 
 drained or not, that the field be laid up m lands or ridges 
 before winter, and that the intervening furrows be well 
 
62 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 
 
 cleaned out. Where clay land cultivation is well under- 
 stood, every field is not only plowed in narrow lands be- 
 fore winter, but diagonal furrows are so taken across the 
 slope as to cut over these ridge furrows at intervals of 
 fifty or sixty yards ; and these cross furrows are well 
 cleaned out by the spade, and so connected with an out- 
 fall to the ditch as that it is impossible for any rainfall 
 to pond anywhere in the field. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 HOME MANURE. 
 
 General and Artificial Manure. — Farm- yard Manures: Manaa:ement, 
 Application, Valuation.— Green Manures.— Sheep Fold— Com- 
 post. — Lime. 
 
 We include in this chapter all the home resources of 
 the farm in connection witli this subject ; — Lime also, as 
 being part of tlie system on which the mainteuance of 
 fertility often depends. The auxiliary and artificial 
 manures now generally employed are the subject of an- 
 other cliapter. 
 
 Manures supply the soil w^ith ingredients required by 
 plants which arc deficient in the land cither by reason of 
 the exhaustion conse([uent on annual cro})ping or from 
 original poverty of composition. 
 
 All fertile soils can yield from their stores of natural 
 fertility a certain amount of produce ; and rent, as Sir 
 J. B. Lawes has recently pointed out, may be described 
 as being paid for the riglit of annually removing a cer- 
 tain portion of the fertilizing matter in the soil. If the 
 crop of the year be left on the land, the fertility of the 
 
HOME MANURE. 63 
 
 soil is increased, for some of it is derived from the air. 
 If it is continually removed, however, the loss will ex- 
 ceed the natural increment ; and the soil will ultimately 
 fail, unless the substances removed are restored from 
 some other source in the form of manure. The poorer 
 the soil, the more complete must be the restoration of the 
 ingredients carried away in the crops, if fertility is to be 
 maintained or mcreased. But even the best soils are 
 made to yield larger crops with manure than they can do 
 without it. 
 
 Practice and experiment in the growth of crops have 
 shown that nitrogen, phosphates, potash, and lime, in 
 assimilable form, are the substances which most strik- 
 ingly benefit land ; and chemical analysis has determined 
 in a measure the varying proportions in which different 
 crops draw upon these and other constituents of the soil. 
 
 Acting on this knowledge, chemists have given speci- 
 fications for the preparation of manures for all the differ- 
 ent crops, these schemes being professedly based on the 
 composition of the crops themselves. But manuring on 
 this principle would often cost more than the consequent 
 increase of the crop would repay ; for it makes no allow- 
 ance for natural fertilitv, and it makes no distinction 
 between the composition of the crops grown and the 
 composition of the produce sold off the farm. AVe know 
 that soils are of very unequal fertility, that some have an 
 unlimited food-supply compared with others, and that it 
 is only the materials sold off the farm that the mainte- 
 nance of fertility requires to be restored. More than this, 
 crops differ greatly in their cai:»ability of self-su^^pl}-. 
 Take, as an example of the latter characteristic, the re- 
 lations of wheat and clover to nitrogen. Chemical an- 
 alysis shows that- clover contains more nitrogen than 
 wheat ; and yet the wheat finds its nitrogen with diffi- 
 culty, while the clover seems to have a power of self- 
 supply in this particular. Thus, in defiance of the 
 
G4 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 
 
 chemical composition of the two crops, the farmers 
 practice, when he manures wheat liberally with nitrogen 
 and gives little or none to clover, is justified. Economic 
 manuring must supplement the plant's Aveakness, while 
 it makes good tlie deficiencies of tlie soil. 
 
 A general manure contains all the constituents of the 
 crop, or at least all those in which soils are most deficient; 
 but it by no means follows that every substance which 
 may act beneficially as a manure ought to be applied. 
 If a soil is deficient in one particular element, and con- 
 tains all the other requisites of fertility, that one sub- 
 stance may act as beneficially when applied as though it 
 were a manure containing all the constituents of the 
 crop. The crop in this case is thrown upon the natural 
 resources of the soil for all its other elements. After a 
 heavy dressing of one substance, that substance may not 
 be required for several years, but some other substance 
 may be needed ; and this all the more because the larger 
 crops now grown will exhaust such other substances 
 more rapidly than the smaller crops did previously. By 
 persisting in the exclusive use of a special manure, an 
 ultimate exhaustion of the soil is inevitable. Judiciously 
 used, special manures are the agents which bring into 
 useful activity the dormant resources of the soil ; they 
 restore the proper balance between its different constitu- 
 ents, and supply the excessive demand for some particular 
 elements. Still, the application useful on one soil may 
 be quite useless on another, and the application may be 
 useful on a soil in one season and useless in another. 
 
 A general manure may be used year after year in a 
 perfectly routine manner, but where a special manure is 
 emploj^ed, the importance of watching its effects and 
 alterim? it as circumstances indicate, cannot be over- 
 estimated. This forces upon us the necessity for study- 
 ing the succession of manures as Avell as that of crops. 
 
HOME MAKURE. 65 
 
 In many cases in which ammonia when first used proyed 
 beneficial, it now begins to lose its effect, and the reason 
 no doubt is, that by its means the phosphates existing in 
 these soils have been reduced in amount, while the am- 
 monia has accumulated, so that change of manuring is 
 needed. 
 
 Artificial Manures. — Farm-yard manure is a '^ gen- 
 eral " manure ; whereas all artificial manures are more or 
 less '^special" manures, some of the most successful of 
 them being deficient in a great many of the most im- 
 portant elements of plant-growth. In addition to the 
 special food-supply yielded by them, they are, as a rule, 
 more active and give quicker returns than farm-yard 
 manure ; so that however rich the latter may be in the 
 constituents of crops, it is impossible, in the present 
 condition of agriculture, to do without large supplies of 
 artificial manures. 
 
 The late Mr. Pusey experimented with a view to dis- 
 coverins: the extent to which farm-yard manure could be 
 profitably used. One acre of land, without manure, 
 yielded fifteen and a half tons of mangels ; a second 
 acre, with thirteen tons of farm-yard manure, }delded 
 twenty-seven and a half tons of mangels ; a third acre, 
 with twenty-six tons of farm-yard manure, yielded twenty- 
 eight and a half tons of mangels ; and a fourth acre, 
 with thirteen tons of farm-yard manure and two hundred 
 pounds of superphosphate, yielded thirty-six tons of 
 mansfels. So that while thirteen tons of farm-yard 
 manure gave an increase of twelve tons in the crop, 
 twenty-six tons of farm-yard manure gave only an in- 
 crease of thirteen tons in the crop, and thirteen tons of 
 farm-yard manure' with two hundred pounds of super- 
 phosphate gave an increase in the crop of twenty and a 
 half tons per acre. 
 
 The artificial manure in this case is shown to have 
 
66 THE SOIL OF THE TAR^,U 
 
 acted as a powerful and economical supplement to farm- 
 yard manure wlien the latter was used in moderate 
 quantity. But there are many cases in which artificial 
 manures must be solely relied on. AVhere land is very 
 steep and hilly, and outlying, it i;? often cheaper to pur- 
 chase light and portable manures ; and to sup2)lement 
 their use in such cases, not with the manure-cart, but 
 by feeding sheep on the field on the roots or other green- 
 crop grown on the land. 
 
 Tlie imj^ortimcc of artificial fertilizers cannot be oyer- 
 estimated in regard to the maintenance of fertility on 
 poor lands. Many of them have acquired also an ad- 
 ditional value on account of their special character, and 
 their special action on the quality of various crops grown 
 for industrial puri30ses, as sugar-beet, flax, etc. 
 
 The action of manures is not, however, fully explained 
 by their affording a direct supply of plant food ; for many 
 of them operate indirectly to feed crops by their chemical 
 effects upon the soil. Thus, farm-yard manure, in under- 
 going decomposition yields a supply of carbonic acid, 
 which mav act on the mineral constituents and liberate 
 their elements. Many mineral manures also, common 
 salt, gypsum, and other saline matters, may react on the 
 soil, converting potash and magnesia, for instance, into 
 soluble forms, and thus giving the same result as would 
 follow an immediate use of the last-named substances. 
 
 Again, certain manures which are used in large doses 
 influence the fertility of the soil by amending its texture, 
 or otherwise modifying its ph^^sical characters— as we have 
 already seen in the case of marling and mixing of soils. 
 Farm-yard manure is of great benefit in this respect, both 
 on heavy clays and on light sandy soils ; for in the one 
 case it diminishes tenacity, and in the other it lessens 
 porosity and helps to retain moisture. 
 
 FarDi-yard manure is a mixture of the dung and urine 
 
HOME 3IA]S^URE. 67 
 
 of farm animals with the straw and other matters nsed 
 as litter. It is regarded as the typical manure, both be- 
 cause it is a ^^ general" manure, and on account of its 
 influence on the texture and general character of the soil 
 to which it is applied. Still it is not a perfect manure. 
 It contains, no doubt, all the elements of plant-growth; 
 but these are not always present in the best proportions. 
 To prevent a deficiency of one element, it has to be em- 
 ployed in such large quantities as to furnish other ele- 
 ments more or less in excess of what is actually required 
 by the crop. Its great bulk also makes it extremely ex- 
 pensive to handle. It is, moreover, exceptionally liable 
 to waste, and it yields its results very slowly. 
 
 In a ton of ordinary farm-yard manure there is con- 
 tained about thirteen pounds of nitrogen, ten and a-half 
 pounds of potash, and ten and a-half pounds of phos- 
 phoric acid. The per centages are of course, variable. 
 Mr. Warington, in the *^ Chemistry of the Farm,"* puts 
 the amount at nine to fifteen pounds of nitrogen, nine to 
 fifteen pounds of potash, and four to nine pounds of 
 phosphoric acid. The conditions affecting the composi- 
 tion and quality of the manure are — (1) the kind and 
 condition of animal producing it; (2) the food of the 
 animal ; (3 j the kind and quantity of litter used ; and (4) 
 the care bestowed upon its after-management. 
 
 1. TJie A7iimal. — The quality of the manure varies, 
 not only with the class of animal — horse, cow, sheep, pig, 
 etc. — which produces it, but with the age and character 
 of the animal. An adult animal takes comparatively 
 little of the nitrogenous and ash elements from the food, 
 because what it chiefly requires is the carbonaceous matter 
 to keep up respiration and to form fat. A young and 
 growing .animal has more varied wants to suj^ply in the 
 formation of both bone and muscle, and therefore it re- 
 
 * Published by Orange Judd & Co. 
 
68 THE SOIL OP THE FARM. 
 
 quires far more of the nitrogenous and asli elements in 
 its food to accomplish this growth, in addition to what 
 is necessary to sustain the vital system and to lay on fat. 
 The same is more or less true of breeding animals, and of 
 animals producing milk and wool. Unless both these 
 and the young growing animals are fed on food rich in 
 nitrogenous and ash elements, the manure from them 
 must be comparatively poor. In the case of the mature 
 animal, however, the manure is not materially less fertil- 
 izing than the original food. 
 
 2. The Food. — More important even than the kind of 
 animals as affecting the quality of the manure, is the food 
 used in feeding them. There is a certain amount of waste 
 tissue thrown off by the animal which goes into the 
 manure, but, speaking generally, the excrement represents 
 that portion of the food wliich is not used by the animal. 
 The extent to which the constitu tents of the food are 
 made use of by the animal will depend on the digestibili- 
 ty of the feeding substance, and on the assimilative power 
 of the animal for the food in question. Oil-cakes yield 
 the richest manure ; then come beans, peas, malt-dust, 
 bran, clover hay, cereal grain, meadow hay, roots, and 
 straw, in the order named. 
 
 3. The Litter is an important part of farm-yard ma- 
 nure, not only on account of the manure matters con- 
 tained in it, which are considerable, but also as affecting 
 the texture and consequent fermentation of the manure. 
 The quantity of litter should be sufficient to absorb and 
 retain the greater part of the liquid manure, and the sur- 
 plus, if any, should be pumped up at intervals and dis- 
 tributed over the manure so as to keep the whole in a 
 proper state of moisture. If the litter is deficient, tlie 
 manure l)ecomes too moist, and the most valuable part 
 drains off, unless means are taken to collect it in the 
 liquid tank. AVliether the manure is too moist or too 
 dry, fermentation is equally checked ; in the former case 
 
HOME MAKURE. 69 
 
 by the exclusion of air, and in the latter case by the vv-ant 
 of moisture. 
 
 Management of Farm Manure. — Air and moisture are 
 both essential to the proper fermentation of manure. If 
 it is too dry, it burns, gets "^fire-fanged," white and mil- 
 dewed; and the high temperature of the manure pro- 
 motes the formation of carbonate of ammonia, which is 
 volatile and easily escapes into the air. This occurs 
 when the temperature exceeds eighty degrees F. But 
 when the manure is kept moist and the temperature low, 
 fermentation stops with the formation of organic acids 
 which take up ammonia. The salts thus formed are 
 present in the black decomposed dung, and the ammonia 
 in them is in a soluble form, but not volatile. A strong 
 smell arising from the manure makes it evident that a 
 wasteful fermentation is going on. But this fermentation 
 is easily controlled. A quick fermentation will be in- 
 duced by placing the manure lightly in heaps so as to 
 allow the air to get at it; a slower fermentation, by tread- 
 ing the manure down firmly, as in carting over it; and a 
 cool fermentation by keeping the heaiD moderately moist. 
 Liquid manure should be used either when it is necessary 
 to moisten the heap, so as to check excessive fermen- 
 tation, or, unless it be very dilute, just before carting 
 the heap on to the land. 
 
 The waste of farm-yard manure may arise from two 
 causes — (1) from excessive supplies of water, as rain falling 
 on and washing it; or (2) from volatilization, or over- 
 heating, and the consequent escape of ammonia. 
 
 The waste by water is generally recognized, but not 
 sufficiently guarded against; and as a consequence the 
 manure is wasted "by rains, soakings, and drainage, which 
 carry off the very essence of it. Where no means are 
 taken to preserve or retain this portion, the loss under 
 ordinary circumstanc33 amounts to from one-third to 
 
70 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 
 
 one-lialf of the whole value of the manure. The soluble 
 nitrates are washed away by tlie raiu, and the loss of 
 course is greatest in rotten manure, whicli contains a 
 great deal of its nitrogen in a soluble condition. 
 
 The loss by volatilization is not so great. Where the 
 manure is kept in a proper condition as to temperature 
 and moisture, little ammonia will escape into the air so 
 long as the manure is not disturbed by turning, as during 
 fermentation organic acids are produced in such abundance 
 as to combine with the greater part of the ammonia, and 
 form soluble salts of ammonia. 
 
 Manure made under cover is preserved from waste by 
 rainfall and drainage; but there is danger of it becoming 
 too dry if the litter is abundant, unless it is moistened at 
 intervals. To feed cattle in covered yards, taking care to 
 si^read tlie litter evenly, and not to supply more than is 
 sufficient to keep them dry, is a great economy so far as 
 their manure is concerned. Box-fed manure and manure 
 from roofed yards have been proved often enough to be 
 greatly superior to that which is made in yards which 
 receive, not only the rainfall proper to their own area, but 
 that of adjoining roofs unprovided with eaves and down- 
 spouts for its removal. 
 
 When manure heaps are formed, a thick layer of dry soil, 
 ditch cleanings, vegetable refuse, or peat sliould be laid 
 down for a bottoming, and the earth or other admixture 
 sliould be iuterstratified in layers with the manure 
 throughout, so as to absorb any liquid which may tend to 
 escape from it; and the whole should also be to]ii)ed with 
 a firm beaten layer of earth in order to exclude the rain. 
 Dry peat is an excellent substance for mixing with manure, 
 as it not only absorbs the liquid portions of it, but 
 somewhat fixes the ammonia. A good peat will absorb 
 about two per cent, of amm:)inia, and when dry will stdl 
 retain from one to one and one-half per cent., or nearly 
 
HOME MANURE. 71 
 
 twice as much as would he yielded by the whole nitrogen 
 of an equal weight of farm -yard manure. 
 
 Gypsum, charcoal, and lime are sometimes added to 
 manure heaps with the view of fixing their ammonia; but 
 wiiere the mana":einent of the manure is otherwise sfood, 
 these are not much required. Chalk and lime are found 
 to have a very good eifect in preventing escape of am- 
 monia from farm-yard manure, provided it is fresh ma- 
 nure. Applied to rotten manure, caustic lime causes a 
 great loss of ammonia. 
 
 As far as possible the formation of field manure-heaps 
 is to be avoided; but if they must be formed, the i:>ractice 
 of turning the manure should be avoided. The labor of 
 doing so, is mostly lost,, and much manure is wasted. It 
 is best in every sense to cart the manure direct from the 
 yards upon the land and spread it at once. The questiou 
 of immediate plowing in, or covering it, is of less 
 consequence than has generally been imagined; but on 
 light soils the practice of immediate plowing under is 
 advisable. 
 
 We must add, as a somewhat disheartening comment 
 upon the whole of these directions and suggestions, the 
 conclusions of the most experienced agricultural chemist 
 of the dav. 
 
 " I am bound to confess," says Sir J. B. Lawes, '' that 
 I am just as helpless in regard to the management or im- 
 provement of manure as the most old-fashioned farmer. 
 It is of no use fixing ammonia Avhere there is hardly any 
 to fix. It costs nothing to look at the dung with the idea 
 of doing something to it; but you certainly cannot touch 
 it without going to some considerable expense. I, for 
 my part, am content, therefore, to let it alone. All labor 
 expended on dung- adds certainly to the cost, but it does 
 not add with the same certainty to its value. 
 
 '^ As I grow a good many mangels," he goes on to say, 
 '' I apply the greater part of the farm-yard manure to 
 
72 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 
 
 this crop, my practice being to open out the furrow and 
 apply about twenty tons per acre, then, after earthing up 
 the furrows, I jiroceed to drill the seed upon the top. If 
 I did not grow turnips, I should ajoply the dung in au- 
 tumn to clover or grass. This, of course, would involve 
 exposure to the atmosphere, but I should not fear much 
 loss on this account, or, at all events, I do not think 
 there would be more by this process than by any other." 
 
 Application of Farm Manure. — If farm manure is 
 applied in autumn, there need be no fear of loss from or- 
 dinary rains, on stiff land at least. The time of year, 
 however, as well as the mode of application which may 
 be best, must depend on what crop it is to benefit most, 
 and on the course of cropping. 
 
 For potatoes, beans, turnijis, and other fallow crops, 
 the dung may be put on the stubbles without much risk 
 of loss before they are broken up; or it may be ai)plied in 
 the manner already described by Sir J. B. Lawes for his 
 mangel crops, at the time of planting or sowing. AVhere 
 the land is to be worked on the flat, tlie former i^ractice 
 is preferable, provided the dung is in stock early enough. 
 In England potatoes are never grown witliout manure; 
 mangels and beans seldom are either; but turnips arc fre- 
 quently grown with the aid of artificial manures only, the 
 land in this case benefiting by the sheep-fold trfterwards. 
 For potatoes, mangels, and beans, fifteen to twenty tons 
 of dung are usually applied per acre; and in most cases 
 this is supplemented with two, three, oreven five hundred 
 pounds of light manures. For turnips about ten tons of 
 dung and the above quantities of auxiliary manures arc 
 reckoned sufficient. 
 
 For the wheat crop, the manure is applied on the clover 
 lea before plowing. Some prefer to manure the clover be- 
 fore the first cutting, others between the first and second 
 cutting ; and others again not until immediately before 
 
HOME MANURE. 73 
 
 the clover lea is broken up. The quantity applied is 
 usually from ten to twelve tons per acre. 
 
 On meadows and grass lauds, autumn manuring is 
 best, but it is not desirable to use fresh and unrotted 
 dung in this case, and it is best applied in the form of 
 compost. From ten to fifteen cart-loads per acre maybe 
 given on grass land, according to the length of time it is 
 intended to last. 
 
 The old plan of bestowing all the manure for a rotation 
 on one crop is now being less followed. Although some 
 crops benefit more by an application of dung than others, 
 it is deemed better to use it oftener, and to give less of it 
 at once ; and as only a given amount can be produced for 
 each acre, the smaller dressing has to be supplemented 
 with artificial manures. 
 
 Green l^Ianures. — This is the term given to crops 
 which are grown for the purpose of being plowed in on 
 the land which produced them. This was once a com- 
 mon practice, but the availability of commercial fer- 
 tilizers, combined Avith the high prices obtainable for ])eef 
 and mutton, has rendered the farmer more careless than 
 he once was of the slower and more natural methods of 
 maintaining or increasing fertility. 
 
 By plowing in a green crop, the surface soil is enriched 
 not only by the elements which the crop derived from 
 the air, but also by mineral and vegetable matters which 
 were brought up by it from the subsoil. The green crop 
 thus acts the part of a gatherer of plant food, and makes 
 it easier for any crop sown after this green-manuring to 
 get its supplies from the decomposing vegetation present 
 m the soil. 
 
 The plants best adapted for green-manuring, are those 
 which derive their support principally from the air, 
 which grow rapidly, which cover the ground well, and 
 4 
 
74 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 
 
 whose roots penetrate deep, and ramify extensively 
 throughout the soil. 
 
 Among the various plants grown for green-manuring 
 are white mustard, buckwheat, rye, rape, vetches, Tri- 
 foUum incarnatum, and common clover. In many coun- 
 tries spurry, borage, and white lupin, are also largely 
 grown for the same purpose. Many of these crops, when 
 plowed in green, are, weight for weight, almost as good 
 as farm-yard manure, containing large quantities of ni- 
 trogen, phosjohoric acid, and potash. The great weight 
 of decomposable vegetable matter contained in the root 
 as well as the Iteaf of a crop, grown for being plowed in 
 as manure, is to be considered in estimating its effect as a 
 fertilizer. There can be no doubt that to this especially 
 is due the fertilizing effect of a clover stubble when 
 plowed in as a preparation for the following wheat crop. 
 
 Eight to twelve tons per acre may be grown of any of 
 the crops we have named with the aid of guano. White 
 mustard comes to maturity in six or eight weeks, and 
 tv/o or three crops of it might bo grown on the same land 
 in a single season, after an early summer crop of peas and 
 potatoes. Only a light plowing is needed, and less than 
 a peck of mustard-seed will seed an acre, at a trifling 
 cost. Some of the other crops are not much less rapid 
 growers, and are also inexpensive to cultivate. 
 
 Green-manuring ])rod aces the greatest effect on light 
 sandy soils in dry climates ; but it is profitably practised 
 also on heavy soils. The green crop should, if possible, 
 be plowed in just before the time of flowering, or at all 
 events after it has arrived at considerable growth. The 
 season of the year for ])lowing in must depend upon the 
 nature of the crop ; but the operation is best performed 
 in the heat of summer, as the conditions for rapid decom- 
 position are then actively present, after the plants are 
 turned in. To cover them effectually, they reiiuireto be 
 first heavily rolled. A skim coulter should be used in 
 
HOME MAKUEE. 75 
 
 the plow that is employed, and the plowing should be 
 deep enough to retain moisture about the decaying 
 plants. 
 
 The Sheepfold. — In districts where bare summer fal- 
 lows are adopted, the practice of folding is carried on very 
 differently from where ^en crop cultivation prevails. 
 The method there is to bring the flock from the pasture, 
 where it is fed by day, and fold it upon a fallow by night. 
 When one fold is sufficiently manured, another one is en- 
 closed, the hurdles being shifted daily. 
 
 The flock under this system is a mere working machine, 
 whose chief purpose was that of a manure carrier. It is 
 probable that more, in mutton and wool, is lost in this 
 way than is gained in manure. Nor is that the only ob- 
 jection to this system. It is made the means of enrich- 
 ing one part of the farm at the expense of another ; as 
 Mr. Bake well put it, it robs Peter to pay Paul. The 
 grass land is starved to feed the arable. This is the com- 
 mon practice in the neighborhood of the Sussex downs, 
 where farms include a stretch of the down land as part 
 of their area. 
 
 Another method is to confine the flock altogother on 
 the fallows, and feed with tares, clover, or other forage 
 plant brought to it. The sheep are better off under this 
 system ; but it incurs a great deal of labor in cutting and 
 carting forage ; and it starves the land which grew the 
 crop. Folding is now more generally practised on land 
 under roots or green crop, where the sheep feed at their 
 ease, and manure the ground at the same time. 
 
 To eat off a crop with sheep is theoretically less en- 
 riching than to plow it in green; and if the soil is poor, 
 thin, sandy, and deficient in organic matter, plowing in 
 green crops will be a very advantageous method of im- 
 proving it. But even on such soils, when mutton or 
 wool is an object, it may be better to feed off' the crop. 
 
76 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 
 
 and enrich the ground by consuming quantities of cake 
 or corn along with it. 
 
 On light soils, sheep-folding is in many cases universal 
 as a preparation for wheat; and it is the chief dependence 
 in all districts where the quantity of farm-yard manure is 
 insufficient. Poor clay may likewise be speedily rendered 
 fertile by heavily folding in summer time and dry weather 
 with sheep fed on cake, grain, and hay, in addition to 
 vetches, cabbages, or other green crop brought to them. 
 The practice is often as advantageously followed on grass 
 land as on arable. On wet, undrained land, and stiff 
 clays, folding is injurious, unless it is done in very dry 
 weather. 
 
 An acre of good clover may feed more than one hun- 
 dred sheep one week ; and an acre of turnips may feed 
 two hundred and forty sheep for the same period. Say 
 that a sheep consumes, and wastes together, twenty- 
 eight pounds of roots daily. Then eighty sheep will con- 
 sume one ton daily ; and two hundred and forty sheep 
 will feed off a crop of twenty-one tons in a week. 
 
 Composts are mixtures of fertilizing substances, which, 
 being allowed to undergo chemical changes for a con- 
 siderable time in heaps, become more valuable than they 
 could have been if applied separately. Peat, road-scrap- 
 ings, clearings of ditches, weeds, loaves, lime and farm- 
 yard manures, are the substances used to form composts. 
 
 Since the introduction of artificial and light manures, 
 the mixing of heavy materials, earth and lime, etc., 
 with other manuring substances seldom pays for the 
 labor expeuded. 
 
 On the other hand, many of the artificial manures are 
 best applied to the soil in the form of compost, i.e,, 
 mixed with some bulky material of less value in order to 
 its more even distribution. 
 
HOME MAKUEE. 77 
 
 Lime. — Quick or burnt lime may be said to exert a 
 three-fold influence as a fertilizer. It is a direct source 
 of plant food ; it unlocks and renders available the stores 
 of inert food, both mineral and organic, contained in the 
 soil ; and it ameliorates the texture of clays. 
 
 As all crops require a certain amount of lime, in order 
 to carry on and perfect their growth, a soil deficient in 
 this mineral substance can never be a very productive 
 one, until the deficiency is made good. 
 
 It is in its second character, perhaps, that lime does 
 its most important work. It decomposes all kinds of 
 vegetable matter in the soil and corrects any acidity due 
 to the presence of organic acids. It assists to decompose 
 certain salts whose bases contribute to the food of plants, 
 and it acts in facilitating nitrification. In all these re- 
 spects it may be said to digest and prepare general plant- 
 food, though it does not in itself furnish more than one 
 of the ingredients which plants require from the soil. It 
 also helps to retain certain soluble manures in the soil, 
 and it economizes the use of potash ; certain crops, such 
 as roots and clover, w^here potash is not abundant in the 
 soil, having to some extent the power of utilizing lime in 
 its place. When we add that lime improves the quality 
 of grain, grasses, and other crops, the finer grasses on 
 certain lands refusing to grow until the land has been 
 limed ; that it is the only known cure for ^^ finger and 
 toe" m turnips; that it hastens the maturity of crops; 
 anS that it destroys insects, and checks the growth of 
 moss and weeds in the soil — it will be seen how various 
 and important is the work it performs. 
 
 The effect of lime on the mechanical texture of many 
 soils is also great. It pulverizes and lightens strong 
 soils, at once improving their drainage and rendering 
 them easier tilled. On peaty soils it reduces the excess 
 of organic matter. It also improves the texture of light 
 soils, provided an overdose is not applied, even when 
 
78 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 
 
 they contain but little vegetable matter; the avidity of 
 the lime for moisture, added to the chemical changes 
 brought about by it, having the effect of increasing their 
 absorptive and retentive powers in a considerable degree. 
 
 The quantity of lime applied need not be large, but 
 may vary, according to circumstances, from 0.05 to .5 
 per cent., by weight, of the cultivated soil. On a soil 
 ten inches deep an application of one ton per acre would 
 represent a dressing of 0.05 per cent.; and ten tons per 
 acre will equal .5 per cent. In actual practice more 
 than five or six tons per acre is seldom api:)lied. This 
 quantity may be required for strong land, or for land 
 containing much organic matter in an inert state; but 
 for light land with little vegetable matter, occasioual 
 dressings of one to two tons per acre will, in most cases, 
 be found sufficient. 
 
 A deep soil requires a heavier dressing of lime than a 
 shallow soil; and deep tillage will call for larger applica- 
 tions than where the cultivation is shallower. A sandy 
 soil requires less lime than a heavy clay; and soils poor 
 m vegetable matter will need smaller dressings of lime 
 than soils that are rich in organic matter. A small 
 quantity of lime will have greater effect on drained lands 
 than a larger dose on w^et and undrained land. Green 
 crops will generally benefit more by lime than corn crops. 
 
 There are few soils in which some lime is not already 
 present; but the smaller this quantity, the better, as a 
 rule, will the soil pay for an artificial ap})lication. The 
 form in which the lime exists in the soil, is, however, im- 
 portant. If in the form of silicate, or even gy])sum, it 
 will pay better to add lime to the soil, than if the lime 
 present had existed, as carbonate. It will also ]iay better 
 to apply lime to land that has never been limed, tlian to 
 land where it has been previously ap])licd. The quantity 
 of lime necessary, as well as the kind of lime that should 
 be added, will thus be much influenced by the composi- 
 
HOME MAJEURE. 79 
 
 tion and texture of the soil. Small dressings at frequent 
 intervals are now the rule. Instead of applying four to 
 eight tons per acre once in fifteen or nineteen years, as 
 formerly, it is considered more economical, on land 
 which has been previously limed, to apply it every six or 
 eight years in quantities not exceeding one to two tons 
 per acre. 
 
 Where the opposite course is adopted there is consider- 
 able waste and a gradually diminishing effect. A certain 
 quantity of the lime is dissolved and removed by drainage 
 waters, and the remainder in a few years sinks below the 
 cultivated depth ; or chemical changes take place which 
 render it effete. On arable land the plow for a season 
 or two brings it back to the surface; but after a time it 
 gets beyond the depth of the plow, and is as much lost 
 as if the land had not been cultivated. This strong ten- 
 dency of lime to sink into the subsoils ought to teach us, 
 when liming land, not to plow the lime in, but to keej) it 
 as near the surface as possible. The land should be 
 plowed first, then the lime sj^read, and simply harrowed 
 in. 
 
 Evidence recently supplied shows that the effect of 
 lime is most durable upon pastures that are grazed : it 
 lasts longer upon good than upon bad land; and longer 
 uj)on clays and heavy loams than upon light land. On 
 the same authority we are told that a full dressing of 
 lime endures frome seven to thirty years. This is not 
 very definite, but with the liability to so many conflicting 
 influences, these extreme differences are easily accounted 
 for. 
 
 On arable land the lime should be applied during the 
 fallow year. It matters little whether this is done in au- 
 tumn or in early spring. Convenience of carting, and 
 opportunity for getting the lime on the land will be the 
 chief guides here. The lime slakes best and quickest 
 when laid down in small heaps and slightly covered with 
 
80 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 
 
 fine soil. This saves re-filling and re-carting. If the 
 heaps are put down ten yards apart each way, there will be 
 forty-eight or forty-nine heaps per acre; and fifty-pound 
 heaps at that rate would give a dressing of twenty-four 
 hundred pounds per acre. If the heaps are placed fiye 
 by five yards apart, the dressing w^ill be four times as 
 much, or nine thousand six hundred pounds per acre. 
 
 Except on old mossy land, lime is best applied to grass 
 land in the form of compost; and the application should 
 be made in early winter, so that the lime may work into 
 the vegetable surface before sj^ring growth commences. 
 The lime may be previously slaked, or a compost formed, 
 in a corner of the field. It should not be put out on the 
 land in small heaps, as in the case of arable land, but 
 spread direct from the cart. 
 
 Limestone and Lime. — Within a few years the extra- 
 ordinary claim has been made, that finely-ground lime- 
 stone was not only of equal value with, but was actually 
 superior as a fertilizer to lime. This assertion by dealers 
 in ground limestone, and by those who had grinding ma- 
 chinery for sale, was apparently sustained by the certifi- 
 cates of persons who claimed to have made comparative 
 trials of limestone and lime. This newly discovered 
 value of limestone, being contrary to all previous experi- 
 ence, and directly opposed to the know^n chemical proper- 
 ties of the two forms of lime, was the subject of numer- 
 ous inquiries by the readers of the ''American Agricultur- 
 alist," to which the editors of that Journal made the 
 following reply : 
 
 Limestone is a most widely distributed mineral, one of 
 its purest forms being known as marble, and is found 
 almost all over the United States of various qualities and 
 degrees of purity. It is a carbonate of lime, that is, lime 
 combined with carbonic acid. If a fragment of limestone 
 is placed in a glass of water, and a little strong acid is 
 
HOME MAIS^URE. 81 
 
 added, the carbonic acid is set free, and we see it pass ofE 
 as bubbles rising through the water. Limestone is so 
 slightly dissolved by water that it is tasteless. It takes 
 one thousand six hundred parts of water to dissolve one 
 part of limestone. Water, in which there is much car- 
 bonic acid, dissolves a considerable amount of carbonate 
 of lime. If a small piece of limestone be kept at a strong 
 red heat for some hours, it will be only about half as 
 heavy as the original stone. What has it lost in the 
 burning? If tested with acid, as before, no bubbles of 
 gas will be given off. The heat has driven out all the 
 carbonic acid; it is no longer a carbonate of lime, but 
 simply lime (an oxide of the metal calcium, or calcic 
 oxide, as the chemists have it). Limestone burned in 
 kilns produces lime, often called quick-lime. If a lump 
 of freshly burned lime have water gradually put upon it, 
 it soon becomes hot; in a little while it swells up, cracks, 
 and falls into a very white powder; though much water 
 has been added, the powder is quite dry. The water has 
 united with the lime, making a solid, caustic or slaked 
 lime. Lime exposed takes up moisture from the air, and 
 we have air-slaked lime. Slaked lime with enough water 
 forms whitewash, or '^milk of lime." On standing, the 
 greater part of the lime will settle, leaving clear lime- 
 water — a saturated solution of lime; that is, the water 
 has taken up all it can dissolve, for at ordinary tempera- 
 ture it requires several hundred parts of water to dissolve 
 one part or quick-lime. If clear lime-water be placed in 
 a glass, and with a straw or pipe-stem the breath be 
 forced into it, the lime-water will soon become cloudy, 
 and then milky. Set the glass aside, and a fine white 
 powder will settle at the bottom, leaving the water clear 
 above. The breath contains carbonic acid; this, when 
 forced into the lime water, unites with the lime, forming 
 carbonate, the same as unburned limestone, which, being 
 little soluble, separates as a white powder. If we con- 
 
82 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 
 
 tinue to breathe into the lime-water after it has become 
 milky, it will soon become perfectly clear as at the start. 
 The continued breathing supplies more carbonic acid 
 than is needed to convert the lime into an insoluble car- 
 bonate; the excess of carbonic acid in the water re- 
 dissolves the carbonate. Heating this solution drives off 
 the excess of carbonic acid, and the carbonate of lime 
 will be deposited again. Carbonic acid is always present 
 in the atmosphere, and when slaked lime is long ex- 
 posed, it takes up this acid and slowly becomes carbonate 
 of lime. 
 
 Why wc use Quick-Lime upon the Land. — All culti- 
 vated plants contain lime in their ashes, and it is con- 
 sidered necessary to their proper growth. But soils 
 generally contain enough lime for the use of the jolants, 
 and we apply it for its action upon the otlier constituents 
 of the soil. Lime acts upon and greatly aids the decom- 
 position of organic matter in the soil. It is thought to 
 neutralize the organic acids contained in what are called 
 ** sour soils." In a complicated manner it aids in the 
 fixing of ammonia. It also acts upon the inorganic or 
 mineral constituents of the soil, and aids in converting 
 them into forms in which they can be taken up by the 
 plants, especially in liberating potash from its combina- 
 tions. The effect of lime upon the mechanical condition 
 of the soil is an important feature. Upon heavy clay 
 soils its effect is most marked; the particles lose their ad- 
 hesiveness, and allow air and water to enter. These are 
 the leading effects that follow the use of lime. In view 
 of the claims made for ground, unburned limestone, it 
 is an important question how far it can produce the 
 above effects. That the unburned limestone will su]i])ly 
 the demands of tlic ])hint for lime, tliat it may slowly 
 neutralize organic acids, and help tlie mechanical texture 
 of the soil seems very i)robable. But that it will perform 
 
AUXILIARY AND EXCEPTIONAL MANURES. 83 
 
 one of the most important offices, the decomposition of 
 organic matter in tlie soil, and convert that into plant 
 food seems improbable, because the ability of lime to do 
 this depends in a great measure upon its avidity for car- 
 bonic acid, while limestone being already a carbonate, 
 has no need of more. That limestone can not produce 
 all the effects of lime is shown by the well-known fact 
 that soils underlaid by limestone, and naturally contain- 
 ing a large proportion of finely divided carbonate of lime, 
 are as much benefited by the use of quick-lime as are soils 
 deficient in limestone. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 AUXILIARY AND EXCEPTIONAL MANURES. 
 
 Guano : Statistics. — Prices.— Valuation. — Application. — Bones : Bone- 
 dust. — Bone-ash. — Superphosphate.— Ground phosphate. — Nitro- 
 genous Manures : Nitrate of soda.— Sulphate of ammonia. — Alka- 
 line Manures: Potash. — Kainit. — Gypsum. — Common salt. — Ashes. 
 — Other Manl-res: Soot. — Rape-dust.— Fish refuse.— Blood. — Sea- 
 weed. — Sewa.c^e. — Liquid manure. — Application of Manures: 
 Top-dressing. — Value, of manures from foods. 
 
 Guano. — The constituents of value in guano are (1) 
 ammonia and ammonia-forming compounds ; (2) soluble 
 and insoluble phosphates ; and (3) alkaline salts. The 
 approximate value of any sample can be arrived at by 
 multiplying the commercial values of these materials by 
 the percentage found of each ingredient. The values of 
 ammonia, phosphoric acid, and potash, vary according to 
 the source which supplies them. 
 
 Analyses ought always to be made before purchasing; 
 and if there be reason to doubt the guarantee of the man- 
 ufacturer, a private analysis can be made afterwards. 
 
84 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 
 
 "Without the knowledge of its composition thus acquired, 
 the best Peruvian guano, rich in ammonia, might be ex- 
 travagantly employed upon soils that would be almost 
 equally benefited by the cheaper qualities, of which the 
 phosphates are the chief fertilizing ingredients. Upon 
 light soils, especially, ammoniacal guano may be used 
 wastefully, owing to the little obstruction such soils pre- 
 sent to the escape of its volatile and soluble portions. 
 The full benefit of these will be better secured in the 
 stronger soils, or in composts prepared with the view of 
 their absorption and retention. In such mixtures guano 
 is used most advantageously. Of itself alone, it may 
 furnish all the ingredients required by the plants; but its 
 activity and evanescence need to be checked ; and on ac- 
 count of its caustic quality, care should be taken that it 
 be not brought in direct contact with the seed. 
 
 The quantity of best guano that should be used per 
 acre is generally rated at from three to five hundred 
 pounds, and it should be applied in damp weather so that 
 the rains may gradually diffuse it equally through the 
 soil. No definite rules, however, can be given as to what 
 soil will be most benefited by guano, or as to the neces- 
 sary quantity to be employed. If used in the compost 
 form it should be mixed, previous to sowing, with four 
 times its weight of good soil; which will avert the danger 
 of injury to the seed and effect a more equal distribution 
 of the manure. For grasses and clovers, ten to fifteen 
 hundred pounds of such a mixture should be sown broad- 
 cast in the early spring. This will be equivalent to from 
 two three hundred pounds of the guano. Guano is too 
 soluble to be applied with profit in autumn. 
 
 On corn crops no manure has a more powerful effect 
 than guano. It is used as a top-dressing in spring at the 
 rate of three to four hundred pounds per acre. The 
 stronger the land is, the larger the quantity that can be 
 applied with profit. 
 
AUXILIARY a:n^d exceptio:n^al makures. 85 
 
 For turnip and other root crops, as much as three to 
 five hundred pounds per acre of Peruvian guano are often 
 beneficially used on strong land without other manure. 
 Peruvian guano is too stimulating when applied in large 
 quantities to late sown turnips, promoting an excessive 
 luxuriance of leaf, and preventing the formiition of bulb. 
 In such cases, phosphatic manures will yield better crops 
 at less ex2)ense. It is applied generally to the root crops 
 by sowing broadcast at their seed-time. 
 
 Beans and potatoes also benefit by guano, but on most 
 soils it does not possess the power of sustaining the 
 healthy growth of these plants without something else in 
 addition. 
 
 Bones owe their value as a fertilizer partly to the phos- 
 phoric acid which they contain, and in a less degree to 
 the combined nitrogenous matter which they contain. 
 They are used as manures either in the form of (1) bone- 
 dust, (2) as bone-ash, or (3) after treatment with sulphuric 
 acid. 
 
 (1.) Bone dust, or bone-meal as it is sometimes term- 
 ed, is obtained by crushing or grinding the bones to a 
 kind of coarse powder. The finer the state of division, 
 the more rapid is the action of the manure, and the 
 coarser the particles, the slower its effect. 
 
 Steaming the bones previous to grinding them, dissolves 
 out about two-thirds of the gelatine, and occasions a loss 
 of nitrogen ; but they are then easily reduced to a very 
 fine powder, and are thus rendered more effective as a 
 manure. 
 
 When bone-dust is prepared from bones that have not 
 been steamed, it is best applied mixed with earth, or some 
 other substance, and fermented. Wet sand, sawdust, 
 stable-droppmgs, or any substance that will induce fer- 
 mentation, may be usefully employed for this purpose. 
 
86 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 
 
 These, mixed with the bones, in the proportion of three 
 to one, and moistened with the dniinings from the cattle- 
 yards, will furnish a highly fertilizing manure. The heap 
 requires to be made up in a covered shed, and having 
 been sutficiently moistened, is left to ferment. The mix- 
 ture is applied to grass land at the rate of thirty or forty 
 bushels per acre ; and to arable land at the rate of twenty 
 or twenty-five bushels per acre. 
 
 As a general rule, bone manures are better adapted for 
 the liijhter class of soils than for stiff land. On some soils 
 their use has been attended with surprising effect ; but on 
 others, such as clay soils, for example, as may be already 
 naturally rich in phosphates, the application of bones is 
 of comparatively little benefit. 
 
 (2.) Bone-ash is the residue left afterburning bones. 
 It consists of the earthy matter of the bone, and amounts 
 to about sixty-six per-cent. of the original weight. It is 
 chiefly obtained from South America, where large herds 
 of cattle are slaughtered, and the tallow melted from the 
 carcass, in which operation the bones of the animal are 
 used as fuel, thus forming the bone-ash of commerce. 
 The essential differences between crushed bones, dissolved 
 bones, and bone-ash, arc that while the first contains phos- 
 phate of lime and nitrogen, the second contains in addition 
 soluble phosphate, and the third has been deprived of its 
 nitrogen by burning. The bone-ash is chiefly used in the 
 manufacture of superphosphate of lime, which only differs 
 from dissolved bones in that it contains no gelatine or 
 animal matter yielding nitrogen. 
 
 (3. ) Superphosphate. — By dissolving bones in sulphuric 
 acid they are rendered more available for the first crop, 
 and a smaller application sufiices at any one time. 
 
 The bones arc first ground to powder, and then treated 
 witli sul])huric acid of specific gravity 1.00. A sufiicient 
 quantity of sulphuric acid is added to every ton of bone- 
 
AUXILIARY AKD EXCEPTI0:N"AL MANURES. 87 
 
 dust, and thoroughly incorporated. In the pasty condi- 
 tion to which the sulphuric acid reduces the bones, it is 
 quite impossible to apply it either by hand or drill ; wood- 
 ashes, peat-ashes, or even dry soil may be used to prepare 
 them for sowing ; but quick-lime, or powdered chalk, 
 must not be mixed with the dissolved bones for the pur- 
 pose of drying, as the lime would restore them to their 
 comparatively insoluble condition. 
 
 By dissolving bones their effect on the turnip crop is 
 greatly increased. Superphosphate is applied at the rate of 
 four to five hundred pounds per acre, when used by itself. 
 
 Superphosphate is also prepared by treating bone-ash 
 and coprolite or mineral phosphate with sulphuric acid. 
 
 The difference between the effects produced by animal 
 phosphate and mineral phosphate is virtually nothing, 
 but the difference in price is yery considerable. 
 
 The farmer may manufacture his own superphosphate. 
 An iron tank or a strong wooden vat is used in prej)aring 
 it, TJie bone-ash or coprolite powder to be dissolved is 
 put into the tank, and over it is poured one-fourth its 
 weight of water. AfterAvards stir and mix well ; then add 
 sulphuric acid ecjual to about half the weight of bone-ash, 
 or more of mineral phosphate, and again stir and mix 
 thoroughly. The finer the division of the ground phos- 
 phate the more rapid and effectual is the process. If am- 
 monia is wanted in the subsequent manure, it can be sup- 
 plied by an addition of sulphate of ammonia. After re- 
 moving the superphosphate from the tank, if it is placed 
 in a heap under cover and allowed to remain for a suffi- 
 cient time, the moisture will evaporate by the heat of the 
 mass. It will lose in weight according to the time it re- 
 mains in the heap, but there will be an increase in the 
 percentage of soluble phosphate. The same substances 
 may be used for drying the superphosphate, however, as 
 have been recommended for drying dissolved bones. 
 
88 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 
 
 Tlie soluble phosphoric acid in superphosphate on com- 
 ing in contact with lime in the soil is rapidly converted 
 into an insoluble form, and consequently it does not rap- 
 idly penetrate the soil. This change takes place with 
 certainty in a soil which contains much calcareous matter. 
 A few hours thus often suffices to modify the easy solu- 
 bility of the manure ; and the more rapid the change is 
 brought about the more necessary it becomes to have the 
 superphosphate in as fine a state of division as possible, 
 and well mixed with the soil. The extreme state of di- 
 vision in which, however, this process leaves it, makes 
 it far more soluble^n the carbonic acid rain-water than 
 the most finely divided bones or coprolites which had been 
 reduced by mechanical means ; and the efficiency of the 
 manure is thus not materially impaired. 
 
 It is especially suited as a manure for the turnij) crop. 
 If used alone, as much as four or five hundred pounds 
 per acre may be applied with good effect ; but on most 
 soils it is advisable to use a smaller quantity ; and for 
 mangel wurzels and potatoes it is best applied mixed with, 
 one hundred pounds of sulphate of ammonia and two 
 hundred pounds of potash salts. For the 2:»otato crop, 
 from four to six hundred pounds of superphosphate may 
 be used, in addition to farm-yard manure, or ammonia 
 and potash salts. As a mangel manure, suiocrphosphate 
 is considerably less effective than guano. On barley it 
 has been largely used as a top-dressing of late years at the 
 rate of about three hundred pounds per acre. The oat 
 crop, too, as grown in the fen districts, receives a dressing 
 of superphosphate with great advantage during the spring. 
 A greater bulk of both grain and straw has thereby been 
 produced, and an earlier harvest is obtained. 
 
 Ground Phosphate— Its value as a fertilizer is derived 
 from the phosphate of lime of which the mineral is partly 
 composed. Coprolites, as to seventy to eighty per cent. 
 
AUXILIARY A2s"D EXCEPTIO^'TAL 3IAXURE3. C9 
 
 of their substance, are a mixed pliospliato and carbonate 
 of lime. 
 
 Althougli there seems to be considerable difference in 
 the results obtained by different experiments, the general 
 conclusion seems to be that the usual difference in the 
 effects produced by soluble and insoluble phosphates is 
 much diminished when the latter are reduced to very fine 
 powder and applied in very large quantities. The pow- 
 dered phosphate is cheaper than the manufactured ma- 
 nure. But there can be no doubt that an increased use 
 of ground coprolites would result in increasing their cost 
 in the market, aud the advantage would thus to some ex- 
 tent be lost. 
 
 After fine grinding, the coprolite powder may be mixed 
 with farm-yard manure, either under the cattle or else in 
 the dung heap, and the carbonic acid formed by the fer- 
 mentation of the dung tends to the solubility of the 
 mineral phosphates by actual superphosphating. Sixteen 
 years ago. Professor Graham pointed out the greater ad- 
 vantage to agriculture of the cheap carbonic acid method 
 of superphosphating than of the dear sulphuric acid 
 method; first, because it was vastly cheaioer, and secondly, 
 because it did not give rise to the production of insoluble 
 phosphates. 
 
 Ground phosphate requires to be used in mucli larger 
 quantities than dissolved phosphate, if it is to produce 
 equal results. As a top-dressing on grass land, however, 
 it should only be applied in showery weather, so that the 
 rains may wash it into the soil. For barley and turnips 
 it is harrowed in or mixed with the soil; and there also 
 it is more effective in a moist season than in a dry one; 
 and its efficacy is in all cases greatly enhanced by com- 
 posting it with the substances mentioned above before 
 applying it to the land. 
 
 Nitrate of Soda and Sulphate of Ammonia. — These are 
 the two chief nitrogenous manures in the market^ and 
 
90 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 
 
 at present prices the nitrate is the cheaper fertilizer of 
 the two. 
 
 ** The commercial value of these two substances is 
 based entirely upon the amount of nitrogen which tliey 
 contain. Having said this, I by no means wish to be un- 
 derstood," says Sir J. B. Lawes, '' that the action of the 
 two substances is the same. Both supply the plant Avith 
 nitric acid, but with the sulphate of ammonia, the forma- 
 tion of nitrate of lime is attended with the formation of 
 sulphate of lime, and with a considerable removal of the 
 soluble sulphate of lime in the soil. Where nitrate of 
 soda is used, an alkali is liberated, which has a decom- 
 posing action upon the minerals of the soil. In cases 
 where sufficient potash is not available, large amounts of 
 soda are also taken up by 'plants when manured with 
 nitrate of soda. We have found soda very largely in pas- 
 ture sugar beets and mangels, but not in potatoes. 
 
 "For some reason which I am unable to exi^lain, the 
 application of nitrate to leguminous plants is more favor- 
 able to their growth than the application of salts of 
 ammonia. The herbage of a permanent pasture, where 
 nitrate of soda alone, in one case, and with the addition 
 of minerals in another, is applied every year, is of a 
 totally distinct character from the herbage where salts of 
 ammonia are applied alone, in one case, and with miner- 
 als in another. I think, too, we have evidence to show 
 that the organic matter in the soil is reduced more 
 rapidly by nitrate than by ammonia." 
 
 Of the two manures, nitrate of soda answers best in a 
 dry season, and sul|)hate of ammonia in a wet one. They 
 can only be economically applied to land with a growing 
 croj) ready to seize on tliem. It is therefore never ad- 
 visable, even in a dry spring, to sow these soluble manures 
 as early as the seed. Grain crops should be well above 
 ground, and root crops should be at least thinned and set 
 out, before either ammonia salts or nitrates are applied. 
 
AUXILIARY AND EXCEPTION'AL MAl^URES. 91 
 
 On wheat or grass land one liundred pounds of sulphate 
 of ammonia or one hundred and fifty pounds of nitrate 
 of soda, per acre, may be used as a top-dressing after 
 early spring growth has commenced; and half as much 
 as a supplementary dressing at a later period, if required. 
 The same quantities will often be bestowed with profit 
 on the root and green crops, giving the first dressing 
 about a month after sowing and the second at the time of 
 the last hoeing. 
 
 Potash Salts. — These are most efficacious on grass 
 land, if well drained, and on light sandy soils. Grasses, 
 potatoes and turnips are particularly benefited by ma- 
 nures of this class. The chief source of supply is kainit. 
 Potash salts in kainit require to be applied to the soil in 
 autumn, giving them time to dissolve in the soil. From 
 one hundred to one hundred and fifty pounds of muriate 
 of potash, or from six to eight hundred pounds of kainit, 
 per acre, are applied in conjunction with other manures. 
 
 Gypsum, or sulphate of lime, is extensively employed 
 as a fertilizer. It enters into the composition of clover, 
 grasses, turnips, and potatoes, but a sj)ecial application 
 of gyj^sum to the soil has little effect in our system of 
 farming. It is abundantly supplied to crops, in the 
 common course of culture, in the farm dung and in 
 superphosphate or dissolved bones and other artificial 
 manures. 
 
 The value of gypsum as a fertilizer is believed to be 
 partly due to its action in fixing volatile and escaping 
 carbonates of ammonia, and conveying them to the roots 
 of plants. When carbonate of ammonia comes in contact 
 with sulphate of lime, double decomposition takes place, 
 carbonate of lime and sulphate of ammonia being formed. 
 Powdered gypsum may thus be used in stables as a fixer 
 of ammonia. It requires to be m a fine state of mechan- 
 ical trituration before it is applied to the soil. 
 
92 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 
 
 Common Salt is an ingredient of crops, but most soils 
 supply it in abundance for tlie wants of tlie plant. Its 
 application is only likely to be useful as a source of plant 
 food in growing such crops as mangels, onions, cabbages, 
 etc., which contain a considerable percentage of chloride 
 of sodium in their ash. It is necessary only on soils 
 naturally deficient in salt, and situated so far inland as to 
 be beyond the influences of the salt-laden sea-breezes. 
 
 On grass lands salt is best used as a compost with 
 vegetable matter; and in that form it may be given at 
 the rate of from three hundred to five hundred jiounds 
 per acre. On arable land it is also best given as a com- 
 post. If used alone, however, the application should not 
 exceed three hundred to five hundred j)ounds per acre, 
 and it should be well harrowed in. 
 
 The destructive action of salt in excess on vegetation 
 is turned to account sometimes in destroying weeds on 
 garden paths, etc. It can also be taken advantage of at 
 times as a corrective to the over-stimulating effects of 
 nitrate of soda and other manures on wheat crops. When 
 these are running too much to straw an application of 
 salt may check this tendency and prevent lodging. 
 
 Soot contains a small percentage of nitrogen. Used 
 alone it makes an excellent top-dressing for spring wheat 
 and grass; being quick in its action without being too 
 stimulating. It has also the property of destroying slugs 
 on winter wheat; and it keeps off other pests. 
 
 Vc^ctablc-ashcs. — Kelp, the burnt ash of sea-weed, 
 contains a large quantity of potash. It takes twenty- 
 four tons of sea-weed to produce one ton of kelp. 
 
 Wood-ashes are rich in potash, and constitute a valu- 
 able manure for potatoes and turnips. They are used to 
 the best advantage when mixed with superphosphate 
 and other manures. 
 
AUXILIARY AK"D EXCEPTION^AL MAJEURES. 93 
 
 Cotton-cakc-dust, and Malt-dust, — The value of these 
 substances is chiefly dependent on the large quantity of 
 nitrogen which they contain. 
 
 Cotton-cake-dust has recently been tried with extra- 
 ordinary effect on poor cotton lands. This could not be 
 due altogether to the connection which existed between 
 the chemical properties of the manure and those of the 
 crop. Their value as feeding-stuffs hinders their use as 
 manures. 
 
 Fish refuse contains nearly two per cent, of nitrogen, 
 and one per cent, of phos^^horic acid. It answers well as 
 a manure for both wheat and root crops when made into a 
 compost with its own weight of soil, and allowed to de- 
 compose before being applied. Fish guano is a manu- 
 facture of the refuse from oil-pressing and fish-curing es- 
 tablishments by pressure and treatment with sulphuric 
 acid. 
 
 Bullock's Blood is used on a large scale as a manure, 
 but chiefly for mixing with other fertilizers. In its 
 natural state blood contains about three j^er cent, of 
 nitrogen; when dried it contains twelve per cent. It 
 makes an excellent manure for turnips when mixed with 
 bone-dust or phospiiatic guano; and, mixed with peat or 
 mould, may be very advantageously applied as a top- 
 dressing to wheat crops and to grass land. 
 
 Sea-weed is largely used as a manure on some parts 
 of the coast. It is especially suited for the potato crop, 
 which requires much potash — a large mineral constituent 
 of sea-weed. Sometimes it is used as a top-dressing to 
 grass land. The action of sea-weed is the same as a green 
 crop plowed in. It contains all the ordinary constituents 
 of land plants. As it putrities rapidly, it forms a quick 
 manure. It is applied at the rate of twenty to thirty 
 
94 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 
 
 tons per acre. The usual practice is to spread it on the 
 soil and plow it in ; but it is occasionally formed into a 
 compost with earth and dung. The neighborhood of the 
 coast is in some districts a distinct element in the value 
 of the land, on account of the sea- weed as a manure, 
 which is thus more cheaply obtained. 
 
 Sewage as a Manure. — The difficulty in the way of its 
 
 use is its enormous bulk in proportion to its valuable 
 constituents. A ton of city sewage ordinarily contams 
 only three pounds of solid matter — viz., one jDound of 
 organic and two pounds of mineral constituents, the 
 former vieldino^ less than three ounces of ammonia, and 
 the latter half an ounce of phosphoric acid and one and a 
 half ounces of potash ; so that in a ton or sewage there is 
 only about five ounces of fertilizing matter. One ton of 
 guano may thus contain as much of the food of plants as 
 twelve hundred tons of sewage. According to the mar- 
 ket price of the former the theoretical value of the sewage 
 ought thus to be about five cents per ton. Practically, 
 however, there is no comparison between the values of the 
 two manures ; because it is found that ten or even twenty 
 times the theoretic equivalent of sewage is required to 
 produce the effect of guauo ; and considering the far 
 greater cost of utilizing the sewage, only a nominal price 
 can be put upon it. 
 
 There are several methods of utilizins: sewasfe : — 
 Irrigation is the method which has been most largely 
 practised. It consists in distributing the sewage over the 
 surface of well-drained fields, from reservoirs into which 
 the sewers empty, or into which their contents are 
 pum]ied. 
 
 In the dry-earth system the sewage nuisance is dealt 
 with house by house. Dry pulverized earth in movable 
 boxes in privies is made the receptacle in which excreta 
 arc covered and rendered harmless, being still serviceable 
 
AUXILIARY AND EXCEPTIOJ^AL MANURES. 95 
 
 for gardens and fields. The system, lit enough for insti- 
 tutions where discipline prevails, is hardly applicable to 
 large towns, where it would entail the bringing in dry 
 earth to the amount of from five to ten pounds for each 
 individual daily. 
 
 The Liquid Manure of the Farm is the drainings or 
 the washings from the farm-yard manure. The best use 
 that can be made of it probably is to return it to the dung 
 heap, where means should be devised for its absorption or 
 retention. If allowed to flow away from the cattle sheds 
 or from the manure pile, it should be collected m tanks. 
 From the coUectinsr tanks it mav be distributed over the 
 land by a watering-cart, when the area is small. On a 
 larger scale, pipes are laid underground in the field, and 
 the manure distributed either by gravitation or by pump- 
 ing. The gravitation system is the only practicable one 
 on the score of expense. Liquid manure is chiefly valu- 
 able for the rapidity with which it produces its effect. It 
 is well adapted to light sandy soils, but a failure on heavy 
 clays. It is also more suitable for grass and root crops 
 than for grain crops. By its use grass may be cut six or 
 eight times in the course of a year. 
 
 Application of Manures. — The tendency of modern 
 practice in manuring is to use readily soluble and quick- 
 acting manures, but to use them sparingly at a time. 
 Little and often is the rule. 
 
 In applying fertilizers of a soluble character, it is found 
 economical to manure the plant rather than the soil. 
 The practice is especially applicable to mangels, cab- 
 bages, and other drilled crops, where the plants are a con- 
 siderable distance apart in the rows. The manure is de- 
 posited by the drill along the line of each plant row, and 
 immediately covered in. Manures which are not so read- 
 ily soluble produce the best effect when intimately mixed 
 
96 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 
 
 with the soil. The depth to which the manure is turned 
 in should be regulated by the nature of the soil and of 
 the manure. On a clay soil it may be buried deeper with 
 advantage than on a sandy soil ; and a slow manure may 
 be buried deeper than a soluble and quick-acting manure. 
 It is not, however, good policy to bury any manure very 
 deeply. The rain in a drained soil will soon distribute it 
 throughout the mass to be fertilized ; but we must not 
 forget that the producing power of a soil is governed 
 more by the mass of its vegetable bed than by the meas- 
 ure of its superficies ; and where the subsoil is un ma- 
 nured the crop will often be underfed. One of the causes 
 of the failure of red clover is traced, we believe, to the 
 dying off of the roots when they penetrate beyond the 
 depth of available manure. Soluble manures, like nitrate 
 of soda and sulphate of ammonia, should be put on the 
 surface ; but undissolved phosphate, and even guano, is 
 best when just covered with the soil. Stiff clays are im- 
 mensely benefited by a good dressing of fresh farm-yard 
 manure plowed under to a tolerable depth. 
 
 Top- dressings with artificial manures are chiefly to be 
 recommended for crops in the grassy stages of their 
 growth — wheat crops in spring, and grass lands at the 
 same season, and especially m wet seasons. In sucli sea- 
 sons one objection to this method of apjilying manure to 
 wheat is the tendency which it produces in the crop to 
 lodge. Salt will i)artly counteract this effect, and it does 
 so by strengthening and to some extent shortening tlie 
 straw ; but this is to counteract one of the principal ob- 
 jects of top-dressing. On clay soils, wliieh produce strong 
 straw, the tendency to lodge is less than on lighter soils. 
 In dry seasons, on the other hand, top-dressings of artifi- 
 cial manures are often inefficient, and the drier the cli- 
 mate the less likely are they to answer. But there are 
 doubtless circumstances when top-dressing may be profit- 
 able in any season — as on poor soils, and where the ma- 
 
AUXTLIAHT AND EXCEPTIONAL MANURES. 97 
 
 nure is applied for the first time on newly reclaimed land. 
 A top-dressing of farm-yard manure always produces a 
 good effect. In a wet season it is washed into the soil. 
 In a dry one it is often very efficacious as a mulch on 
 grass and arable land, too, if, as is sometimes done, it be 
 applied to the latter immediately after the croj) is put in, 
 and before the plants come up. 
 
 Artificial manures may be applied either in a dry or 
 liquid form, broadcast, or in the drill. The common 
 practice for root crops, beans, and peas, at least, is to 
 deposit in the drills either by hand or machine; but for 
 potatoes, where roots are grown on the ridge, the manure 
 is frequently distributed broadcast, previous to forming 
 the drills, when it becomes more mixed with the soil. 
 There are now manure distributers in use for this purpose; 
 and they are equally suitable for applying top-dressings of 
 lis-lit manures. 
 
 Great advantage has attended the use of the water- 
 drill for sowing turnip and mangel seed in dry seasons. 
 By applying the manure in a liquid state, the germina- 
 tion of the seed and the subsequent brairding can gener- 
 ally be relied on. In a dry climate, the water-drill is 
 desirable in any 3^ear, if root crops, which have to be put 
 in at the driest and hottest season, are to be successfully 
 cultivated. The same quantity of manure is used as in 
 the dry state, and the quantity of water is regulated by 
 the condition of the land and the dryness of the atmos- 
 j^here. Superphosphate and guano are the most suitable 
 manures for the water-drill. 
 
 The need of providing for the self-maintenance of a 
 soil by good management of the home resources is hardly 
 of the urgency that it once possessed, now that we have 
 helps in auxiliary manures, formerly unknown, at our 
 command, but in economical agriculture the question 
 will always 'oe important ; and the alternative of main- 
 taining fertility by the purchase of auxiliary manures 
 5 
 
98 
 
 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 
 
 (producing their whole effect almost at once) or by pur- 
 chases of food for live stock and the artificial enrichment 
 of their manure, will always be one of the most interest- 
 ing for the farmer. The latter plan, which now forms 
 part of all good farm management, is theoretically much 
 the more economical, and practically much the more en- 
 during. 
 
 Considering the operations of auimal nutrition and 
 growth as a mere chemical process, the manure excreted 
 has a value which, calculated according to the data sup- 
 plied by the manure market, is a very large proportion 
 of the original market price of the food. Sir John B. 
 Lawes has prepared the following table, giving the value 
 which ought to be realized from the manure derived 
 from different kinds of food; 
 
 Money rahte 
 DescripTion of of the Manure 
 
 Food. from one ton 
 
 of each food. 
 
 Decorticated cotton seed 
 
 cake $32.50 
 
 Rape cake 24.62 
 
 Linseed cake 23.12 
 
 Common cotton-seed cake 19.62 
 
 Beans 18.50 
 
 Linseed 18.25 
 
 Peas 15.62 
 
 Indian meal 7.75 
 
 Malt dust 21.37 
 
 Bran 14.50 
 
 Oats 8.75 
 
 Wheat 8.25 
 
 Malt 7.75 
 
 Money value 
 Dei^criplion of of the Man ure 
 
 Food. from one tern, 
 
 of each food. 
 
 Barley $ 7.50 
 
 Clover hay 11.37 
 
 Meadow hay 7.62 
 
 Bean straw 5.12 
 
 Pea straw 4.68 
 
 Oat straw 3.37 
 
 Wheat straw 3. 12 
 
 Barley straw 2.68 
 
 Potatoes 1 . 75 
 
 Parsnips 1.37 
 
 Manuel wurzel 1.31 
 
 Swedish turnips 1.06 
 
 Common turnips 1.00 
 
 Carrots 1.00 
 
 These are the estimated values of the food remnants 
 in the several cases named, calculated upon the market 
 prices of the several fertilizing ingredients wliich they 
 contain ; and if there were no waste anywiiere in tlie 
 management of the manure before it reaches the soil, or 
 
THE LOSS OF NITKOGEI>r. 99 
 
 in the soil itself before it readies the plant, these figures 
 might be realized. At present, they do but give the 
 possible result of an unattainable economy, and they can 
 only be kept before us as a goal at which to aim rather 
 than as one which we may expect to reach 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE LOSS OF NITROGEN.* 
 
 The Loss of Nitrogen in purchased manures ; Tlie loss of Nitrogen as 
 
 Nitric Acid. 
 
 B^ J. B. LAWES, LL.D., F. R. S. 
 
 On the Loss of Xitrogen in Purchased Manures when 
 Applied to Crops. — There is one great advantage that 
 writers on the subject of Agriculture in the United States 
 possess over the same class in Great Britian; they are 
 sure to obtain an impartial hearing. In the United 
 States a farmer, on coming across any views, or state- 
 ments on the subject of agriculture that are new to him, 
 asks himself the question, are these true; and, if so, 
 what benefit can I derive from them? In Great Britain, 
 from the conflicting interests of the owner of the land, 
 and the occupier who pays an annual rent for the right to 
 cultivate it, the teachings of science are likely to be 
 praised or blamed accordingly as they affect the interests 
 
 * Nitrogen is one of the most important constituents of barn-jard and 
 of artificial fertilizers. When purchased it is the most costly element in 
 fertilizers, and whatever relates to its loss, and incidentally to its pres- 
 ervation, is of great importance to the farmer. In view of this, the ac- 
 counts in this chapter of some experiments at Rothamsted, England, 
 written for the "American Agriculturist" by Sir J. B. Lawes, will be 
 read with special interest. 
 
100 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 
 
 of the owner rather than those of the cnltivator of the 
 soil. A few years ago, when public attention was directed 
 to the vast increase in the amount of agricultural pro- 
 duce sent from the States to England, there w^ere many 
 who put forward the view that, by a more liberal appli- 
 cation of capital to the soil, we could grow all the wheat 
 required to feed our population. Under these circum- 
 stances I thought it my duty to caution tenant farmers 
 against paying too much attention to statements which 
 were uttered by those who had no experience in either 
 practical or scientific agriculture. I accordingly delivered 
 a lecture before a farmer's club, in which I endeavored to 
 show, by the teaching of my own experiments, that a 
 higher system of farming was not so certain a remedy for 
 falling prices as some wished them to believe. 
 
 In a letter recently published in a paper devoted to 
 field sports, which I have been informed is much read *by 
 the owners of land, a writer who signs himself * 'Agri- 
 cola," makes the following observations: ''Certain pam- 
 phlets of Mr. Lawes have done intolerable mischief in 
 giving a false coloring to the service higher farming might 
 render in enabling British fanners to tide over the pres- 
 ent crisis," and he goes on to say that we have the coun- 
 terblasts of M. Georges Ville to send all unsubstantial 
 utterances beyond the domain of rational consideration ! 
 
 If in speaking of the immense influence which such nitro- 
 genous manures as ammonia, or nitric acid, produce upon 
 the growth of our ordinary cereal crops, I had pointed out 
 that, owing to. the high price of these substances, it was 
 by no means certain the increase in produce would pay 
 for their application ; and consequently it Avould be de- 
 sirable for the United States farmer to exercise some 
 caution in their use. I think it is hardly possible to be- 
 lieve, that any one in the States could suppose such a 
 caution would be productive of evil. 
 
 In another case I was rather amused at a correspon- 
 

 THE LOSS OF KITKOGEI^. 101 
 
 dence which I lately noticed betyrcen M. Georges Ville 
 and some one who had called his attention to my views 
 with regard to the sources of the nitrogen in tegetation, 
 which were altogether antagonistic to those entertained 
 by M. Ville. M. Ville, in his answer, stated that he had 
 heard of the existence of a pamj)hlet on the subject, but 
 that he was so much engaged in showing how foreign 
 competition could be best overcome, that he had not 
 time to look into it, but that he would do so, in order to 
 see whether it would be necessary for him to answer it 
 himself, or whether he should leave the task to one of his 
 pupils. 
 
 With regard to the subject of nitrogen, the views I am 
 disposed to entertain may be briefly summarized as fol- 
 lows: — (1) That the soil and not the atmosphere is the 
 main source of the nitrogen which we find in our crops. 
 (2) That in the application of manures containing ni- 
 trogeu, more or less loss of that substance is always in- 
 curred; and consequently, if the object is to obtain any 
 given amount of nitrogen in the produce, the application 
 in the form of manure must be largely in excess of the 
 amount required. In everything relating to the compe- 
 tition between Europe and the United States; between 
 the vast stores of untouched fertility of the one, and the 
 comparatively exhausted stock of the other, the questic n 
 of nitrogen is one of paramount importance. I am not 
 aware myself of any writer, practical or scientific, who 
 has accepted as a fact, or even entertained the idea that, 
 in the application of nitrogen in purchased manures a 
 considerable loss is incurred. This loss in a substance of 
 so costly a nature is a matter of great economic import- 
 ance. The view generally held, I believe, is that no loss 
 takes place, and further, that by a small application of 
 nitrogen, a farmer not only recovers in the crop all that 
 he has applied in the manure, but a good deal more. 
 This, according to M. Ville, is the economic function 
 
102 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 
 
 of our root crops, which, when well supplied with min- 
 erals, and a small amount of ammonia, get what more 
 they require of this element from the atmosphere. The 
 following are the views of this writer with regard to a ro- 
 tation: *'That some crops demand all the nitrogen they 
 require to be supplied to them; others require a small 
 amount, which enables them to obtain a good deal in ad- 
 dition from the atmosphere; while others again can ob- 
 tain the whole of the nitrogen they need from the atmos- 
 j)here." This explanation api^ears so simple and clear 
 that it seems quite a pity to say anything that could 
 throw a doubt upon its accuracy. 
 
 I will now endeavor to show what loss of the nitroo'cn 
 in the manure has taken place in our own exj^eriments on 
 the growth of potatoes at Rothamsted. In order to 
 measure the effect of nitrogen, and also ascertain 
 whether any, and if so what amount of loss has taken 
 place, our plan has been to grow the crop continuously, 
 with mineral manures alone. AYe consider that by this 
 means the crop avails itself of all the sources of nitrogen 
 at its disposal, whether they be derived from the soil or 
 the atmosphere. When, in addition to the same min- 
 erals, nitrogen in some soluble form is applied to tlie po- 
 tatoes in another experiment, we consider that the increase 
 in the crop over that grown by minerals alone, is 
 due to the nitrogen of the manure; and further, if we 
 deduct the amount of nitrogen in the crop grown by 
 minerals alone, from the amount contained in the crop 
 grown by minerals and nitrogen, the residue, when com- 
 pared with the amount of nitrogen applied in the manure, 
 will give us the measure of the loss. I must observe, how- 
 ever, that this experiment requires to be continued for a 
 good many years before any safe conclusions can be 
 drawn; first, because of the great influence of favorable 
 or unfavorable seasons; and, secondly, because it is only 
 by the aid of time that we can ascertain whether the 
 
THE LOSS OF KITROGEiT. 103 
 
 nitrogen applied, but not recovered in one crop, is 
 available for those which succeed. The more favorable 
 is the season for the growth of a croj:), the better 
 will the crop be able to avail itself of the stores 
 of manure furnished by the soil and atmosphere. At 
 Kothamsted, the season of 1881 was very favorable for 
 the growth of potatoes; I therefore select that year's 
 crop, not as indicating what might be the average loss of 
 nitrogen applied in manure, but to show how very 
 serious may be the loss, even under exceptionally favora- 
 ble conditions. The following table gives the number of 
 bushels of potatoes of fifty pounds each: 
 
 TABLE. 
 
 Bushels per Acre.' 
 
 (1) Potash, soda, magnesia, superphosphate 265 
 
 (2) The same as (1) with 400 lbs. salts of ammouia 481 
 
 Gain by addition of ammonia 219 
 
 It is quite evident that the mineral manures enabled 
 the potatoes to gather up a large amount of nitrogen; 
 and that further growth was only arrested for want of 
 more nitrogen, is evident by the much larger crop grown 
 when a manure containing that substance was used; this 
 fact is still further confirmed by the analyses of the pota- 
 toes grown by mineral manures alone, Avhich show a very 
 low percentage of nitrogen. Assuming that the ordi- 
 nary potatoes in a dry state contain one per cent, of 
 nitrogen, these potatoes contained one-sixth less than 
 that amount, and it is probable that under such condi- 
 tions no further growth was possible. 
 
 We now come to the loss of nitrogen. The four hun- 
 dred pounds of sulphate and muriate of ammonia are 
 estimated to furnish about eighty-five pounds of nitro- 
 gen. Taking the potatoes grown by mineral manures 
 alone at twenty-six pounds, we find in those grown by 
 ammonia and minerals sixty-six pounds, or an increase 
 of forty pounds; but as we supplied eighty-five pounds 
 
104 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 
 
 in the manure, we have recovered something less than 
 fifty per cent, of the amount supplied, and this, too, 
 under the influence of an unusually favorable season! 
 Taking an average of seasons, it would be much nearer 
 the truth to say that n^t more than one- third of 
 the nitrogen supplied is recovered in the croj). Pota- 
 toes contain twenty-five per cent, of dry matter in 
 every one hundred pounds; if we take a bushel to weigh 
 fifty pounds, eight bushels will weigh four hundred 
 pounds; which amount is equivalent to one hundred 
 pounds of dry matter, and will contam one pound of 
 nitrogen. 
 
 To obtain this one pound of nitrogen in the produce, 
 we find it necessary to apply three pounds in the manure, 
 and as the nitrogen costs about twent3^-five cents per 
 pound, this large difference between the amount supplied 
 and that recovered becomes a very serious consideration. 
 
 I might further observe that as our experiments are 
 conducted with more care and attention than could pos- 
 sibly be given to crops grown under the ordinary opera- 
 tions of agriculture, I do not think it would be safe to 
 reckon on a smaller loss than that which we have incurred, 
 and the probability is that it might be much larger. 
 
 The general conclusion to be drawn from these experi- 
 ments, as well as from those upon root crops in general, 
 such as turnips, mangels, and sugar beets, is that they do 
 not obtain their nitrogen from the atmosphere; and that, 
 when supplied with that substance, the amount recovered 
 in the crop is very much less than that supplied in the 
 manure. 
 
 The Loss of Mtroffcn as Mtric Acid.— In one of the 
 
 arable fields at Rothamsted we placed, ten years ago, 
 three sraujres, each havins: an area of one one-thousandth 
 of an acre, at tlie various depths of twenty, forty, und 
 sixty inches below the surface. The operation was per- 
 
THE LOSS OF XITROGEiT. 105 
 
 formed without any disturbance of the soil, and no veg- 
 etation is allowed to grow upon the area occupied by the 
 drain gauges themselves. Close to them is a rain 
 gauge of a similar size. We obtain by this arrangement 
 a knowledge of the rain-fall, and also of the amount of 
 rain wator which passes through the soil at different 
 depths. From time to time analyses have been made of 
 the water passing through the soil, and latterly the 
 whole of the nitric acid and chlorine which the water 
 contained has been determined. The results are in 
 course of publication. I do not propose, therefore, on 
 the present occasion, to do more than point out the im- 
 portant bearing these investigations have upon j)ractical 
 agriculture. 
 
 The whole history of nitric acid, as regards its bearing 
 upon vegetation, is of quite recent date. The time is 
 within my own recollection when it was a question of 
 doubt whether the effect of nitrate of soda on vegetation 
 was due to the nitrogen or the soda. At the present 
 time it may be said that every farmer has an interest in 
 nitric acid, and that a correct knowledge of its properties 
 and action, with relation to our soil and croj^s, must be 
 the basis of all agricultural science. 
 
 The amount' of nitrogen which passes through the 
 Eothamsted drain gauges every year since they were 
 established, if calculated upon an acre of land, would ex- 
 ceed forty pounds in weight. I have made an estimate 
 of the nitrogen contained in crops grown in the United 
 States, taking as my basis the average produce over the 
 whole country for ten years, and the amount removed 
 per acre would be very much less than this. Upon ordi- 
 nary arable land, therefore, which is not particularly fer- 
 tile, and has remained iincropped and at rest, more nitro- 
 gen passes each year through the soil than we should find 
 m an ordinary crop of grain, potatoes, or hay, grown m 
 the States. Let us add to this fact three others. (1.) 
 
106 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 
 
 That the water passing through these gauges is much 
 richer in nitrogen than the rain which falls upon them. 
 (2. ) That it is richer in nitrogen in the autumn than at 
 any other time of the year. (3.) That the drainage 
 water collected in another field, where a crop of wheat 
 was in luxurious growth, contained no nitric acid at all, 
 and we have before us a basis from which some very im- 
 portant conclusions can be drawn. 
 
 We learn that the most important ingredient of the 
 food of all plants, as also the most expensive when used 
 artificially, is continually produced in our soils, is con- 
 tinually moving about, continually being taken up by 
 vegetation, and continually being washed away and lost. 
 Such being the case, it follows as a necessary consequence 
 that the amount of nitrogen that analysis has proved to 
 be contained in our crojDS is not a correct measure of the 
 exhaustion of this substance, but we must add to it the 
 amount of nitric acid which is lost from the crop being 
 unable to take it up from one cause or another. I will 
 endeavor to explain my meaning by an illustration taken 
 from an ordinary operation in farming. A farmer sows 
 two fields, one with wheat only, one with wheat and 
 timothy, clover, rye-grass, or an assortment of these 
 plants. The wheat is sown before the seeds, and takes 
 the largest share of the light and food; soon after bloom- 
 ing the wheat ceases to gather food from the soil, and in 
 the early summer, the crop being ripe, is carried away. 
 The seeds are thus relieved from a powerful antagonist, 
 and, having complete possession of the soil, continue to 
 grow both above and below it until they are stopped by 
 frost; even then it is probable that tlie roots, which are 
 beneath the region of frost, grow and collect food. 
 
 Assuming the wheat field not sown with grass to be 
 without weeds at the time of harvest, and afterwards (a 
 very improbal^le assumption, I admit,) it would resemble 
 the soil of my drain gauges, and be subject to the same 
 
THE LOSS OF KITROGEK. 107 
 
 losses from the washing out of the nitric acid by the 
 winter rains. A high temperature is favorable to the 
 production of nitric acid in our soil, and the collecting 
 power of the wheat has ceased before the highest tem- 
 perature of the summer has been reached. We may 
 make an imaginary sum of the result as follows : 
 
 Lbs. of nitrogen washed aicay per acre. 
 
 From soil without vegetation 40 
 
 From soil with wheat, 15 lbs. retained by crop 25 
 
 From soil with wheat and seeds— retained by wheat, 15 lbs.; by seeds, 
 25 lbs . . . 5 
 
 Green yegetation is the great agent by which nitric 
 acid is converted into insoluble forms; it is evident, 
 therefore, that before we can assign to any of our crops 
 their proper economic function in a rotation, we must 
 take into account both the length of time to which the 
 period of their growth extends, and also the range and 
 depth of their roots. The tendency of the Eothamsted 
 experiments is every year leading us more and more to 
 the conclusion, that the source of nitrogen in our crops 
 is to be found in the amount of that substance stored up 
 in our soils. If further investigation should establish 
 this to be absolutely true, the current irieas with regard 
 to the properties of several of our crops will require con- 
 siderable modification. 
 
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