The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1860-01-10 00:00:00

The following extracts of • letter from Baron Liebig
to Mr. Becht will be read with interest :

" Munich, Nov. 17.
" Dear Sir,—Your letter of the 7th of November to
The 7'imes furnishes inc an occasion to express to you
my simaire thanks for the slew, to which you there give
utterance, and which I have laboured many years to im-
press. lam sorry not to be able to s-ty that my efforts
have been atteiiiied with any iiereeiditle results, and I
cog ri it as a fortunate event that a MAO of au eminently
practical a character as yotti.elf has now for the first
tune, in the interests of sgrieultore, and the national
welfare, take up thy imeation of the sewerage of
towns' with warmth, and in language adapted to imakto.
conviction.

" It Islay ardent wish that you ntay succeed in awaken-
ing the English people to your own convictions ; for
in that case the ways and uteitus for setting aside the
difficulties which stand tu the way of procuring manure
from the siewerage of towns will oortoinly be found,
salts Mos geolmimiiwin kaki.* Ilion res
have devoted their ezergiei to the attainment of this end
as the greatest benefactors of their country.
"Tie ground of my small success lies clearly in the
fact that the majority of fsriners do not know the extent
to which their own interests are concerned in this nat-
ter, aid becsuse the views and conceptions of moat wen
in regard to the circuit of life aml the laws which govern
the preservation of the race he not generally rise above
there of C. lourrier, the inventor of the phalanstery.
He proposed, issi you know, to supply the wants of the
uocupauto of hiiiiphalanstery ,py means of eggs. lie sup-
posed it was only necessary to procure a couple of hun-
dred thousand lima, each of which, sold in England,
would preiduou an immense income. Fourrier knew very
well that Inns lay eggs, but lie seemed not to know that
in order to lay an egg they moat cat an amount of corn
its equal in weight; and so inust men do not know that
the holds, in order to yield their harvests, must either
contain or else receive from the hands of man certain .
conditions which stand in the Wile relation to the pro-
ducts of the field as the hen's food does to the eggs she
lays. They think that diligent tillage and good weather
are sufficient to produce a good harvest; they therefore
regard this question as one in which they are wholly un-
concerned, aid look forward carelessly and with indiffer-
ence to the futnre.
" As physicians who in the apparent signs of a young
man's blooming health discern the fatal worm which
threatens to undermine his organic frame, so in this ease
should these discerning men who are capable of compre-
hending the range of the question raise the earlier the
voice ut warning.
" It is true that the diligent tillage of the gelds, sun-
shine, and timely rains are the outward conditions, per-
eeptible to all men, of good harvests ; but these are per-
fectly without efiect upon the productivenesa of the held,
wile.* certain things nut so easy of perception by the
senses are pris lit in the soil; and the, are the elements
w huh serve for nourishment, ler the production of roots,
leaves, and seeds, and which are present in the soil
always in very small quantity, in proportion to the mass
of the soil itself.

" These elements are taken from the soil in the pro-
ducts of the field—in the corn or in the flesh of the
animals nourished by these products, and daily ex-
perience shows that oven the must fruitful field ceases
after a certain Writ>, of harvests to produce these
. . . . .

'2A child can comprehend that under these circum-
stances a very productive field, in order to remain very
productive, or even simply productive, must have the
elements which lead been withdrawn in the harvests per-
fectly restored; that the aggregate of the conditions most
remain in order to produce the aggregate results, and
that a well, however deep it may be, which receives no
supply of water, mud in the end becoum empty, if its
water is constantly pumped out.
"Our fields are like this well of water. For centuries
those elements which are indispensable to the reproduc-
tion of the crops have been taken from the soil in those
crops, and that, too, without being restored. It leas
been only recently ascertained how small a supply of
these elements the soil really has. A beginning has
becu made to restore to the fields the losses which they
sustain through the annual harvests, by introducing from
external sources manures containing the same elements.
Only • very few of the better-informed farmers perceive
the necessity of this restoration, and those of thcin who
have the IlleSllll have zealously endeavoured to increase
the amount of these elements in their fields ; but by far
the greater part of them know nothing of such restora-
tion. They think that they may ountheue to take from
the field as long as there is anything left, and that it will
be time enough to provide fur this necessity when it
knocks at their doors. They do not of counsel know how
large their stock on hand is, nor are they aware that
when the necessity shows itself there will be no means
to correct it; they know not that what they have wasted
is irretrievable.

" The loss of these elements is brought alrint by the
' sewerage system of towns.' Of all the elements of the
field which, in their products, in the shape of corn and
meat, are carried into the cities, and there consumed,
nothing, or as good as nothing, returns to the fields. It
is clear that if these elements were collected without loss,
and every year restored to the fields, these would then
retain the power to furnish every year to the cities the
saute quantity of corn and meat; and it is equally clear
that if the fields do not receite back these elements
agriculture must gradually °ease. In regard to the uti-
lity of the avails of the ' sewerage of towns' as manures
no farmer, and scarcely an intelligent man, has any
doubt, but as to their necessity opinions are very
various.

" Finally, it is impossible in civilised countries to raise
the corn production beyond a certain limit, and this limit
has become no narrow that our fields are no longer
capable of a higher yield without an increase of their
effective elements by the introduction of manures from
abroad.

" By the application of guano and bones the farmer of
most limited capacity learns the real import of such in-
crease; be learns that the pure system of stall or home-
made manures is the true and genuine robber system.
In consequence of his restoring in the guano and bones
but & very small portion of those very mine elements of
seeds and of fodder which lied been withdrawn from his
fields by centuries of cultivation, their products are won-
derfully increased. Experiments inatituted with special
reference to this end in six different parts of the king-
dom of Saxony showed that each hundredweight of guano
put upon a field produced 150 lb. of wheat,
400 lb. of potatoes, and 2SU lb. of clover more than the
mine used piece of ground without guano, and from this
it may be calculated how enormously the corn and fieah
production of Europe has been increased by the yearly
importation of 100,100 toes, or 2,000,000 cwt., of
guano.
" The effect of guano and bones should have taught
the fanner the real cause of the exhaustion of his fields ;
it should have taught him in what • condition of per-
petual fertility he might have preserved his fields;
if the elements of the guano which he has transported in
the shape of meat aud products of the field into the
cities were recovered and brought into • form which
would admit of their being restored to his fields every
. _

"To an understarding of this, however, the farmer
has not yet collie, for, as his forefathers believed that
the soil of their fields was inexhaustible, so the farmer
of the present day believes that the introduction of anis-
nures from abroad win have no end. It is much simpler,
he thinks, to buy guano and bones than to collect their
elements from the SVVICra of town, and, if a lack of the
former should ever arise, it will then be time enough
to think of a resort to the latter. Itut of all the errone-
ous opinions of the farmers this is the most dangerous
and fatal.

" In relation to guano I have been assured that in 20
to 25 years, if the use of guano should increase in even
the same proportion as hitherto, there will not remain
in South America enough to freight • ship. We will.
however, suppose its supply and that of bones to con-
tinue for 60 years, or even longer ; then what will be tbe
condition of England when the supply of guano and bone
is exhausted

"This is one of the easiest of all questions to answer.
If the common 'sewerage system' is retained, then the
imported manures, guano and bones, make their way
into the sewers of the cities, which, likes bottomless pit,
have for centuries swallowed up the guano elements of
the English fields, and after • series of years the land
will find itself precisely in the condition it was in
before the importation of guano and bones commenced;
and after England shall have robbed the cultivated lands
of Europe even to complete exhaustion and taken from
them the power to furnish her longer with corn and
manure, then she will not be richer than before in the
means of producing corn and meat, but will from that
tune forth becoice even poorer in these means.
" By means of the importation of guano and hones the
population, has, however, in consequence of the increased
production of corn and meat, increased in a greater ratio
than would have been possible without this importation
rucilemnanauresthe,
sanuidietahisieirponiamtluao ratilndewmill.dinaforkefud7 the
" It has been maintained that the recovering of the
manure-elements out of the sewers of the large cities is
impracticable. I am not ignorant of the difficulties which
stand in its say. They are, indeed, very great; but if
the engineers would come to an understanding with the
men of science in relation to the two purposes—the re-
moval of the contents of the sewers and the recovery of
their valuable elements for agrieultnre—l do not doubt
that a good result would follow. Intelligence in union
with capital represents a power in England which has
rendered possible and practicable things of much greater
apparent difficulty. I look forward with deep concern
to the solution ef the sewerage question, for if this quo-
tion is decided in Great Britain without regard to the
wings of agriculture we can scarcely hope for anything
better upon the Continent.
'l know that the prophets of future evil have at all
times been derided by their own generation; but, if his-
tory and natural laws Can tarnish any ground tor a just
conclusion, then there is nom which stands more trolly
than this- -that, if the British people do not take pains
to secure the natural conditions of the permanent feral.
lity of their land—if they allow them candidata, as hitherto, to be squandered—their holds and meedowswill
at no distant time mem to yield their retains at earn
and meat, But it does not belong to the marines et
natural science to discuss the question whether the
might, strength, and independence of the Mike will be
preserved after this state of thinp shell have geadwills
' arisen."