is not manure. The effect is due to improved climatic conditions. It has nothing to do with the question of manure. We often read in the agricultural papers about ‘_shade_ as manure.’ We might just as well talk about _sunlight_ as ‘manure.’ The effects observed should be referred to modifications of the climate or season; and so in regard to mulching. A good mulch may often produce a larger increase of growth than an application of manure. But mulch, proper, is not manure. It is climate. It checks evaporation of moisture from the soil. We might as well speak of rain as manure as to call a mulch manure. In fact, an ordinary shower in summer is little more than a mulch. It does not reach the roots of plants; and yet we see the effect of the shower immediately in the increased vigor of the plants. They are full of sap, and the drooping leaves look refreshed. We say the rain has revived them, and so it has; but probably not a particle of the rain has entered into the circulation of the plant. The rain checked evaporation from the soil and from the leaves. A cool night refreshes the plants, and fills the leaves with sap, precisely in the same way. All these fertilizing effects, however, belong to climate. It is inaccurate to associate either mulching, sunshine, shade, heat, dews, or rain, with the question of manure, though the effect may in certain circumstances be precisely the same.” Charley evidently thought I was wandering from the point. “You think, then,” said he, “manure is _plant-food that the soil needs?_” “Yes,” said I, “that is a very good definition--very good, indeed, though not absolutely accurate, because manure is manure, whether a particular soil needs it or not.” Unobserved by us, the Deacon and the Doctor had been listening to our talk. --“I would like,” said the Deacon, “to hear you give a better definition than Charley has given.” --“Manure,” said I, “is anything containing an element or elements of plant-food, which, if the soil needed it, would, if supplied in sufficient quantity, and in an available condition, produce, according to soil, season, climate, and variety, a maximum crop.” CHAPTER IV. NATURAL MANURE. We often hear about “natural” manure. I do not like the term, though I believe it originated with me. It is not accurate; not definite enough.