The journal of a naturalist / [Anon].

  • John Leonard Knapp
Date:
1829
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The journal of a naturalist / [Anon]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    43/450 page 23
    proportion, I should not think it very deleterious. This earth acts as a caustic to vegetation, and, neither being soluble in water, nor possessing the other virtues of lime, diminishes the number ot bushels used according to its existence, and thus deprives the crop of that portion of benefit: but after all, as Kirwan says, the secret processes of vegetation take place in the dark, exposed to the various and indeterminable influences of the atmosphere; and hence the difficulty of deter- mining on what peculiar circumstance success or failure depends, for the diversified experience of years alone can afford a rational foundation for solid and specific conclusions. The real goodness of a soil consists prin- cipally, perhaps, in the power it possesses of maintaining a certain degree of moisture; for without this, the plant could have no power of deriving nutriment from any aliment: it might be planted on a dunghill; but if this had no moisture in it, no nutriment would be yielded ; but as long as the soil preserves a moisture, either by its own constituent parts, or by means of a retentive substratum, vegetation goes on. Continue the moisture, and increase the ali- ment, and the plant will flourish in proportion ; but let the moisture be denied by soil, substra-
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