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The manures most advantageously applicable to the various sorts of soils, and the causes of their beneficial effect in each particular instance / by Richard Kirwan
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grand and complicated operations, like a wellfortified town, cannot be mastered by storm ora coup-de-main; the approaches must be madeat a distance, and almost unseen. Hence wemay infer how little can be expected from agri-cultural societies that do not unite chemistryand meteorology with their principal object.

With respect to the question at present be-fore us, the great desiderata seem to be, Howto render charcoal soluble in water for the pur-poses of vegetation: and, to discover that com-position of the different earths best suited todetain or exhale the due proportion of the average quantity of moisture that falls in eachparticular country. On this relation, or adap-tation, we have seen that the fertility of eachessentially depends: we must also have per-ceived, that to a regular and systematic im-provement of soils, a knowledge of their de-fects, and of the quantum of their defects, isabsolutely necessary. This information can beconveyed only by a chemical analysis. Coun-try farmers (at least as long as the present ab-surd mode of education prevails) cannot be ex-pected to possess sufficient skill to execute the