, is to preserve it from loss,
until we wish to use it on the land.

"We all admit that," said the Deacon, "but is there anything actually
gained by fermenting it in the heap?" --In one sense, no; but in
another, and very important sense, yes. When we cook corn-meal for our
little pigs, we add nothing to it. We have no more meal after it is
cooked than before. There are no more starch, or oil, or nitrogenous
matters in the meal, but we think the pigs can digest the food more
readily. And so, in fermenting manure, we add nothing to it; there is
no more actual nitrogen, or phosphoric acid, or potash, or any other
ingredient after fermentation than there was before, but these
ingredients are rendered more soluble, and can be more rapidly taken up
by the plants. In this sense, therefore, there is a great gain.

One thing is certain, we do not, in many cases, get anything like as
much benefit from our manure as the ingredients it contains would lead
us to expect.

Mr. Lawes, on his clayey soil at Rothamsted, England, has grown over
thirty crops of wheat, year after year, on the same land. One plot has
received 14 tons of barn-yard manure per acre every year, and yet the
produce from this plot is no larger, and, in fact, is frequently much
less, than from a few hundred pounds of artificial manure containing far
less nitrogen.

For nineteen years, 1852 to 1870, some of the plots have received the
same manure year after year. The following shows the _average_ yield for
the nineteen years:
_Wheat _Straw
per acre._ per acre._
Plot 5.--Mixed mineral manure, alone 17 bus. 15 cwt.
" 6.--Mixed mineral manure, and 200
lbs. ammoniacal salts 27 bus. 25 cwt.
" 7.--Mixed mineral manure, and 400
lbs. ammoniacal salts 36 bus. 36 cwt.
" 9.--Mixed mineral manure, and 550
lbs. nitrate of soda 37 bus. 41 cwt.
" 2.--14 tons farm-yard dung 36 bus. 34 cwt.

The 14 tons (31,360 lbs.) of farm-yard manure contained about 8,540 lbs.
organic matter, 868 lbs. mineral matter, and 200 lbs. nitrogen. The 400
lbs. of ammoniacal salts, and the 550 lbs. nitrate of soda, each
contained 82 lbs. of nitrogen; and it will be seen that this 82 lbs. of
nitrogen produced as great an effect as the 200 lbs. of nitrogen in