he
pastures upon which they feed cannot be very bad; and in the same way,
where a rank growth of weeds is found springing up upon land that has
been abandoned, it may be taken for certain that the elements of food
exist in the soil. This ground was covered with vegetation, but of the
most impoverished description, even the "Quack" or "Couch-grass" could
not form a regular carpet, but grew in small, detached bunches;
everything, in fact, bore evidence of poverty.

Possibly, the first idea which might occur to any one, on seeing land in
this state, might be: Why not grow the crops by the aid of artificial
manures?

Let us look at the question from two points of view: first, in regard to
the cost of the ingredients; and, secondly, in regard to the growth of
the crop.

We will begin with wheat. A crop of wheat, machine-reaped, contains, as
carted to the stack, about six pounds of soil ingredients in every one
hundred pounds; that is to say, each five pounds of mineral matter, and
rather less than one pound of nitrogen, which the plant takes from the
soil, will enable it to obtain ninety-four pounds of other substances
from the atmosphere. To grow a crop of twenty bushels of grain and two
thousand pounds of straw, would require one hundred and sixty pounds of
minerals, and about thirty-two pounds of nitrogen; of the one hundred
and sixty pounds of minerals, one-half would be silica, of which the
soil possesses already more than enough; the remainder, consisting of
about eighty pounds of potash and phosphate, could be furnished for from
three to four dollars, and the thirty-two pounds of nitrogen could be
purchased in nitrate of soda for six or eight dollars. The actual cost
of the ingredients, therefore, in the crop of twenty bushels of wheat,
would be about ten to twelve dollars. But as this manure would furnish
the ingredients for the growth of both straw and grain, and it is
customary to return the straw to the land, after the first crop, fully
one-third of the cost of the manure might, in consequence, be deducted,
which would make the ingredients of the twenty bushels amount to six
dollars. Twenty bushels of wheat in England would sell for twenty-eight
dollars; therefore, there would be twenty-two dollars left for the cost
of cultivation and profit.

A French writer on scientific agriculture has employed figures very
similar to the above, to show how French farmers may grow wheat at less
than one dollar per bushel.