of nitrogen to be sufficient to produce his maximum wheat crop.

Mr. Lawes' soil furnished enough nitrogen to yield seventeen bushels of wheat. Addition of forty-one pounds of nitrogen, in form of ammonia salts, gave twenty-seven bushels, or an increase of ten bushels. Eighty-two pounds of nitrogen applied in the same form gave thirty-seven bushels, or twenty bushels increase.

The reason why Mr. Lawes was obliged to add eighty-two pounds of nitrogen to double the wheat crop, lies in the following considerations:

When ammonia is applied as manure, a portion of it is fixed in a comparatively insoluble condition in a clayey or loamy soil, and a share of this fixed ammonia it is doubtless very difficult for the plant to acquire. Again, nitrification, or conversion of ammonia into nitrates, goes on, and the nitrates are freely soluble and wash out of the soil. Then we know that the roots of the plant cannot come into contact with the whole of the soil, so that we should not expect that all the available nitrogen there would be taken up. The figures show that from seventy to eighty pounds is sufficient, provided it is in a form and in a position in which the plant can appropriate it. In stable manure we appear to waste a considerable quantity simply because it is not present in a form in which the plant can use it.

Now, stable manure, when it is put into the soil, may be compared with clover roots or any other vegetable matter put into the soil. Stable manure consists very largely of vegetable matter which has passed through animals, and of more or less litter which we mix with it. There is a small portion of the

twenty-two per cent, and the nitrogen of the roots was a little less than one-fifth that of the entire plant, or eighteen per cent.

Heiden found the nitrogen of the roots of ripe rye but one-tenth that of the entire nitrogen. Stockhardt's examination was made on the unripe wheat. By ripening, the proportion would doubtless have been reduced. Heiden found, in fact, that the ratio of root to top in blossoming rye was about one to siz, but in ripening was reduced to one to thirteen and one-half.

If, then, the roots alone contain one-tenth of the entire nitrogen, the roots and stubble may be fairly reckoned to contain one-fifth of the entire nitrogen.

Weiske, indeed, gives twenty-two pounds of nitrogen per acre for the roots and stubble of wheat, but we are not informed how high the stubble was cut.

nitrogen of the manure actually formed into these ammonia salts which Mr. Lawes applied, but most of the nitrogen, in order to to be used by the plant, must be transformed, must pass into some other state than that in which it exists in the manure itself; must probably either be converted into ammonia or nitrates.

MR. LYMAN. Suppose the case that I wish to use all the liquids of my stock, and absorb it all, and do not pay so much attention to the coarser manure. What, in your judgment, is the relative value of the one placed by the side of the other? This question is being agitated extensively.

PROF. JOHNSON. That depends somewhat upon the food which the animals have. If they are kept upon low rations the liquids would be the best. But if they are supplied with rich food, grain, meal or oil-cake, that indeed increases the value of the liquids, but increases more, relatively, the value of the solids, because you cannot get into the circulation of the animal beyond a certain amount of nutritive matter; but you can run through the intestinal canal much more material which is only partially digested, and so the value of the solid manures, as compared with the liquids, is increased by increasing the richness of the food.

When oxen or other herbivorous animals are kept on rations which just maintain them without much gain or loss of live weight, the daily urine usually contains rather more nitrogen than the dung. Sometimes the nitrogen of the dung exceeds that of the urine, but while all the nitrogen of the urine is adapted for immediate use as plant food, much of that in the dung is comparatively inert. The urine contains also more alkalies than the dung, but the dung usually contains all the phosphoric acid and most of the lime.

Measured by assimilable nitrogen or by alkalies, the liquids are much the best; measured by phosphates, the dung is most valuable. Practically, however, we cannot make a sharp separation. The solids nearly always absorb a good portion of the liquids.

I think I have now gone over about the ground that I contemplated. At least, we have approached pretty near the hour for dinner. With regard to the question about the improvement of pastures, there are a variety of ways in which the land can be saved from being useless. One of the most practical methods is to put on a top-dressing of some sort. The fact that moss grows there indicates that the soil is getting a little too moist, and it is a question whether plants will do well unless that moist condition of the soil is somewhat broken up. If those fields admitted of under-drainage, and it did not cost too much, that would be an effectual remedy against moss; you would never see that again. My excellent friend, Mr. Blakeslee, whispers to me, "Put on a flock of sheep!" and that is also an excellent prescription.

MR.

We can't do it; the dogs kill them.

PROF. JOHNSON. The treatment which the gentleman suggests who asked the question, has nothing against it theoretically, and the fact that it has succeeded elsewhere shows it must be a good plan. There is no reason why such land should not grow into great value. If clover could be brought in it would probably raise the land in a couple of years to the productiveness that it had forty years ago, by simply bringing up the materials which the roots of other plants cannot get at. Probably any application containing lime or sulphate of lime, leached ashes, oyster shell lime, or any thing of that sort, would be beneficial. These things always favor the growth of

clover.

MR. Low. I have found the results of the application of commercial fertilizers so variable, under different circumstances, that I would like to have the Professor give us some information on the question whether, if we should incorporate with any litter or straw we have about our farm yards some chemicals that would act upon the soil something like barnyard manure that would not be better than the chemicals alone.

PROF. JOHNSON. I do not know of any chemicals, except, perhaps, plaster, that can be advantageously mixed with the yard litter.

AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE OF MICHIGAN

AND ITS INFLUENCE.

BY GEORGE GEDDES.

From the New York Tribune.

A feeling is becoming quite prevalent among farmers, and perhaps other classes of men, that the objects proposed by the action of the national Legislature in granting large quantities of the public lands to promete and make available such a system of education as should be especially adapted to the wants of persons engaged in producing the food of the people has been nearly lost sight of, and that most of the endowments have been perverted, and in many cases used to strengthen the funds of denominational institutions engaged in educating young men for the so-called learned professions, and principally for the pulpit. This impression of the public mind has become so general that the time has certainly come to investigate the facts, and to ascertain whether there really is an Agricultural College worthy of the name.

Michigan long since established in the woods, near the political capital of the State, an institution intended especially for the education of such young men as proposed to employ themBelves during their lives in some other way than the practice of law or medicine, or in the instruction of the people from the pulpit. Something over 600 acres of land, a heavy forest then covering most of it, became its property,—and it was named an Agricultural College,-and from time to time was given, in small sums, assistance from the State. The first thing to be done was to create a farm and construct suitable

buildings for the use of the faculty and students, and this must necessarily be the work of years. A history of the trials and labors through which this pioneer institution has passed to bring it to its present condition, would be interesting in the proper place, but forms no part of my present purpose, which is to give, as far as practicable, a statement of its present condition, referring to the past only so far as is necessary to explain why so much time has been consumed getting into fair working condition.

The grant made by Congress to all the States gave the State of Michigan 240,000 acres of land. This land was by the State given to this college, and by the catalogue of 1872 it appears that 47,232 69-100 acres had been sold, from which a fund has been created of $154,178 07, the interest of which is applicable to the support of the college, and it is expected that in three or four years the income derived from the sale of lands will make the college self-sustaining. So it appears that thus far the sales of land average very exactly $3 26 per acre, and if that rate can be kept up will finally give an endowment of nearly $800,000, the interest of which will be available to devote to the objects aimed at by the law making the grant. The farm -containing 676 acres, of which about 300 are under cultivation-has an undulated surface drained by a small river, a branch of the Cedar, which is a tributary of the Grand that runs into Lake Michigan at Grand Haven. The soil has all varieties of loam, from sandy to clayey, and beds of muck along the river and at other places; gentle slopes to valleys running in different directions give ample means of drainage. The original forest was principally oak, and many of its trees have been left about the buildings and in the lawns, and on these trees are labels giving their scientific names, to be read by every passer-by. The buildings are grouped on the gentle eminences that the undulating surface give, and the whole, being three miles or more from the city of Lansing, and away from all accommodation for teachers or pupils, houses for the