IMPROVEMENT OF LAND.
A correspondent to the Agricultural Gazette says—l remember very long ago the Cotswold Hills, in Gloucestershire, were very little better than barren banks of sand. Early in this century they were reclaimed by being planted with sanfoin (cinquefoil) well manured. It is the duty of fungus, the most nitrogenous of all plants, to feed on wood fibre, and convert it into vegetable mould. The cinquefoil, after a vigorous growth, was eaten down by sheep, and then ploughed in. Fungus (seeded from the air) soon converted this mass into rich mould, taking abundant supplies of nitrogen from the atmosphere, and we know what the Cotswold Hills are at present. I think- that it is a general law of nature that nothing is fit for nourishment of plants or animals till it has passed through the fungoid process of decay, either in the stomach or before it gets there ; but fungus growth for the most part is invisible, and only indicates itself as in touchwood or in fairy-rings.
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Patea Mail, 24 January 1882, Page 4
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169IMPROVEMENT OF LAND. Patea Mail, 24 January 1882, Page 4
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