en applied failed to produce
growth; and when we come to the bad year we find that only twenty-six
and a half pounds were taken up out of the eighty-seven pounds applied,
thus leaving more than two-thirds of the whole unaccounted for.

Seasons are only occasionally either very bad or very good. What we call
an average season does not differ very much from the mean of the best
and worst years, which in this case would be represented by a crop of
four thousand four hundred and ninety-four pounds, containing nearly
forty-five pounds of nitrogen. I may say that, although I have employed
one per cent. to avoid fractions in my calculations, strictly speaking
three-quarters of a per cent. would more nearly represent the real
quantity. If, however, on the average, we only obtain about forty-five
pounds from an application of about eighty-seven pounds of nitrogen, it
is evident that not more than one-half of the amount applied enters into
the crop.

Now in dealing with a substance of so costly a nature as ammonia, or
nitrate of soda--the nitrogen contained in which substances cannot cost
much less than twenty-five cents per pound by the time it is spread upon
the land, it becomes a question of importance to know what becomes of
the other half, or the residue whatever it may be, which has not been
taken up by the crop. Part is undoubtedly taken up by the weeds which
grow with the wheat, and after the wheat has been cut. Part sinks into
the sub-soil and is washed completely away during the winter.

I, myself, am disposed to think that the very great difference in the
size of the Indian corn crops, as compared with the wheat crops in the
States, is partly accounted for by their greater freedom from weeds,
which are large consumers of nitric acid, and, in the case of the wheat
crop, frequently reduce the yield by several bushels per acre. It must,
however, be borne in mind that, though the wheat is robbed of its food
where there are weeds, still if there were no weeds, the amount of
nitric acid which the crop could not get hold of, would, in all
probability, be washed out of the soil during the ensuing winter. I come
to the conclusion, therefore, that the nitrogen alone, which would be
required to produce one bushel of wheat, would cost not much less than
fifty cents; and that, in consequence, wheat-growing by means of
artificial manures, will not pay upon very poor land.

I have said that the land, about which I was consulted, h