Without their aid most manures would be useless for plant growth.
Compost or animal manures offer other natural approaches toward improving soil quality.
Both the quantity and the quality of the produce, and consequently its feeding value, must depend greatly upon the selection of the best description of roots to be grown, and on the character and the amount of the manures, and especially on the amount of nitrogenous manure employed.
The cereal crops (wheat, barley, oats, rye, maize); the cruciferous crops (turnips, cabbage, kale, rape, mustard); the solanaceous crops (potatoes); the chenopodiaceous crops (mangels, sugar-beets), and other non-leguminous crops have, so far as is known, no such power, and are therefore more or less benefited by the direct application of nitrogenous manures.
It is equally true that, when under the influence of special local or other demand - proximity to towns, easy railway or other communication, for example - the products which would otherwise be retained on the farm are exported from it, the import of town or other manures is generally an essential condition of such practice.
