her countries; if the demand and price
diminished, that would also be checked by a reduction or cessation of
the usual imports, and, if necessary, by an export of any surplus which
pressed upon the market;--and, if our space allowed, it would not be
difficult to show that, with prices at the natural rate, all parties
connected with land would not only be in a safer but a much better
condition.

No cautious man who well understands the subject will ever hazard his
capital in any trade exposed to so many evils and to so much uncertainty
as restriction and protection infallibly introduce into it:--but the
great error which misleads all men in cherishing such trades is, that
they mistake _high prices_ for _high profits_, which usually, instead of
being synonymous terms, are quite the reverse.

AGRICULTURE.

No. II.

ON THE INDICATIONS WHICH ARE GUIDES IN JUDGING OF THE FERTILITY OR
BARRENNESS OF THE SOIL.

BY THE REV. WILLIAM THORP.

(_Continued from No. 2._)

These three signs, viz., colour, consistence, and vegetation, are named
by the Royal Agricultural Society as being pre-eminently indications of
the value of lands; yet there are others of equal if not of greater
consequence. For example:--

_A knowledge of the geology of the land_ is of the first importance;
that is, not only a knowledge of the range and extent of each formation
and its subdivisions, which may be called geographical geology, but also
how far and to what extent the various lands do depend upon the
substratum for their soil, and the local variations in the chemical or
mineralogical character of the substrata themselves, and which may be
called the differential geology of soils. For not only do the qualities
of land vary from one formation to another, but upon the same formation
there is frequently considerable difference in the quality of land
depending upon chemical difference in the substratum, or upon an
intermixture of foreign debris derived from other strata.

_A chemical investigation_ of the soil and subsoil will frequently
afford most useful indications respecting the value of land. It may be
laid down as an axiom that a soil to be fertile must contain all the
chemical ingredients which a plant can only obtain from the soil, and
chemistry ought to be able to inform us in unproductive soils what
ingredients are wanting. It also is able to inform us if any poisonous
substance exists in the soil, and how it may be neutralized; w