1852.] 



213 



An inspection of the above analysis of the cotton seed shows that it abounds 

 in the phosphates and alkalies. Drs. Will and Fresenius, in their analysis of 

 the cereal grains, show that wheat also abounds largely in these constituents. 

 The following analysis, as above quoted, will enable the comparison to be 

 made: 



Red Wheat. White Wheat. 



100.00 100.00 



These constituents being derived directly from the soil, plainly indicate the 

 reasons why the land in the South is so readily exhausted. The crops extensively 

 cultivated there, all require, in a great measure, the same food from the soil ; 

 and hence, soils which will not produce cotton are alike incapable of producing 

 the cereal crops. The great benefit derived from the application of cotton seed 

 as a manure, to these crops, is accounted for from the same causes, in their 

 abundance of alkalies and phosphates. In connection with the assimilation of 

 alkaline phosphates by plants, the experiments of Dumas on the solution of 

 bones by water charged with carbonic acid, as detailed in a memoir " on the 

 manner in which phosphate of lime enters organized beings," (Comptes Rendus, 

 Nov. 30, 1846,) are interesting. He remarks that the phosphate of lime, though 

 insoluble in water, nevertheless penetrates through bones, and is deposited in 

 their structure, and that, on the other hand, bones are slowly disaggregated by 

 the soil and disappear after a time. This is owing, according to Dumas, to two 

 causes, the one, sal-ammoniac acting rarely and feebly, the other, carbonic acid, 

 acting constantly and rapidly. Plates of ivory introduced by Dumas into bot- 

 tles of Seltzer water, were as much softened after twenty-four hours as if they 

 had been acted on by dilute muriatic acid ; and the Seltzer water was found 

 loaded with phosphate of lime. I would call attention to this property of car- 

 bonic acid as satisfactorily explaining the assimilation of the phosphate of lime 

 by plants. The carbonic acid given off in the fermentation of the manure 

 greatly facilitates the solution of phosphate of lime when present as 

 bone ash. 



It was a matter of surprise to Prof. Liebig that soils not furnished artifi- 

 cially with the preponderating constituents of the cotton plant and seed, should 

 produce a crop abounding in the phosphates. This leads me to further investi- 

 gation, and a rich field of research lies still unexplored in the analytical exam- 

 ination of the cotton soils of the South and West. 



Thomas J. Summer. 



South Carolina^ 1848. 



It is indeed a matter of surprise that an article of such world-wide necessity 

 should have been hitherto so neglected by agricultural chemists, and indeed I 

 am not aware that we have even now an analysis in full of the ash of the whole 

 plant. The two best analyses are those of the stalk by Summer and Judd. The 

 analysis of the seed by Summer contains an error of loss and Chlorine = 4.84 

 p. c. The same analysis (of seed) by Shepard, gives an error of 1.68 p. c. of 

 loss. Carbonate of potassa. Sulphates of Lime and Magnesia, Alumina and 

 Sesquioxide of Iron ; and Shepard's analyses are calculated with regard to the 

 composition of the ash itself, instead of giving the constituents separately, 

 which alone renders a comparison between different analyses possible, the com- 

 position of ash varying according to the nature and quantity of its constituents, 

 and the degree of heat at which it is prepared. I have recalculated Summer's 



33 



