Excerpt from The Southern Planter, Vol. 18: Devoted to Agriculture, Horticulture, and the Household Arts, November, 1858It has been stated above, that all petres ce'nt manures, (in whatever stage of the progress of fermentation and decay, and also in the freshest and soundest state of the materials, before fermentation has be gun, consist partly of soluble matter al 1eady fit to serve as food for pl, ants and pat-¿y of ha1d, insoluble matter, inert and at that time useless as manu1e. The p10 portions and quantities of these different parts continually vary in the. Same body. With the progress of decomposition, by the insoluble parts changing to soluble, and the soluble to the gaseous form, and then passing off, and being lost. If ma nure, whether in its newest and soundest, or in its oldest and most reduced state, or in any intermediate stage of decomposi tion, be applied to land, and plowed nu der, as is usual, the soluble parts will be dissolved'by the first abundant rain. 'if roots of then growing plants had already spread throughout the soil, and were everywhere present when this solution of the manure took place, they would begin immediately to suck up the liquid food thus offered, and m a few days the whole supply might be put to use, and converted to patts of the plants so fed. But if no plants were yet growing when this solu tion occurred, then none of this food could be put to such use. If the soil is properly constituted to combine with, and retain such putrescent matter, and also it then requires the supply, it may be so saved until plants are in possession of the 8111 face, and demand and will consume the before useless food. But any excess of soluble matter thus furnished, and not con sumed immediately by plants, and beyond the ability and need of the soil to combine with and fix - and also all subsequent sup plies under like circumstances - would be subject to further decomposition, and final ly to entire waste in the gaseous state. Some parts, while yet in the condition of solids dissolved in water, would pass off from the land with the excess of rain water, 'and ¿ow into the brooks and rivers.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.