hemical combinations it is desirable to use far more than the
chemical equivalents, or the experiments don't succeed. I perceive
that you intend to use guano next year, and that you intend to use
it along with the seed. I trust it will not be sowed in contact
with either the seed or the quicklime, which you proposed to use
in some of your land. The best time I have found for applying
guano is in wet weather, just when vegetation is making a start in
the spring--say the last week in March, or the first week in
April--as I fear a large part of the soluble portion of it would
be washed away by the rains of winter. It is true we have had none
this winter, but when shall we have such another? Did you ever use
woollen rags as manure? They ought to be excellent, as they are
almost all albumen, and are, I fancy, to be had at a very moderate
price, not far from you. Can you inform me what it is that causes
the land to be clover-sick? If it is the abstraction of something
from the soil, what is that something? Sir Humphrey Davy said that
a dressing of gypsum would prevent it; but clover does not succeed
here (even when dressed with gypsum), if sowed every four years.
One reason why I think so small a quantity of manure will not
succeed, is based on the theory of excrementitious secretion.
Decandolle proved that this secretion took place, but he did not
succeed in proving that it poisoned the land for a similar crop. I
can only reason from analogy, and it does not follow that an
analogy drawn from animal life will hold good when applied to
plants; but if we were to feed an animal with pure gluten and pure
starch, with the proper quantity of phosphates, &c., are we to
suppose it would have no excrements? Let this be applied to
plants: are we to suppose that the plant assimilates all that is
absorbed by its roots and leaves? When that which is absorbed is
what would enter into the composition of the plant, is it not more
rational to suppose that the inorganic and gaseous constituents
only combine in fixed proportions, and that although the plant may
absorb a much larger proportion of one than is required, the
surplus is discharged excrementitiously, and perhaps may be
unfitted for entering into the plant until it has undergone a
decomposition? In conclusion, I trust you will pardon my frankness
in so boldly canvassing your opinions; but it is in this collision
of opinion that the truth will be elicited, and if I judge you
aright, i