e the best
manure? Does it not appear much more natural that the decomposed
elements of vegetables should be the most appropriate to the formation
of new vegetables?

MRS. B.

The addition of a much greater proportion of nitrogen, which constitutes
the chief difference between animal and vegetable matter, renders the
composition of the former more complicated, and consequently more
favourable to decomposition. The use of animal substances is chiefly to
give the first impulse to the fermentation of the vegetable ingredients
that enter into the composition of manures. The manure of a farm-yard is
of that description; but there is scarcely any substance susceptible of
undergoing the putrid fermentation that will not make good manure. The
heat produced by the fermentation of manure is another circumstance
which is extremely favourable to vegetation; yet this heat would be too
great if the manure was laid on the ground during the height of
fermentation; it is used in this state only for hot-beds, to produce
melons, cucumbers, and such vegetables as require a very high
temperature.

CAROLINE.

A difficulty has just occurred to me which I do not know how to remove.
Since all organised bodies are, in the common course of nature,
ultimately reduced to their elementary state, they must necessarily in
that state enrich the soil, and afford food for vegetation. How is it,
then, that agriculture, which cannot increase the quantity of those
elements that are required to manure the earth, can increase its produce
so wonderfully as is found to be the case in all cultivated countries?

MRS. B.

It is by suffering none of these decaying bodies to be dissipated, but
in applying them duly to the soil. It is by a judicious preparation of
the soil, which consists in fitting it either for the general purposes
of vegetation, or for that of the particular seed which is to be sown.
Thus, if the soil be too wet, it may be drained; if too loose and sandy,
it may be rendered more consistent and retentive of water by the
addition of clay or loam; it may be enriched by chalk, or any kind of
calcareous earth. On soils thus improved, manures will act with double
efficacy, and if attention be paid to spread them on the ground at a
proper season of the year, to mix them with the soil so that they may be
generally diffused through it, to destroy the weeds which might
appropriate these nutritive principles to their own use, to remove the
stones wh