THE POTATO. 265 



version of the sod furnishes much vegetable matter and ren 

 ders the land pervious to air and moisture. Tlie aeration of 

 the soil is of great consequence to nearly all crops, but is 

 specially important to the potato. The air is a great store- 

 house of fertilizing material, and is ever ready to give up its 

 treasures to the rains and dews, and even to carry them to 

 the rootlets of plants, if the condition of the soil is such as 

 to give it free access. Most farmers have an idea that all 

 fertilizing material comes from the land. To disabuse their 

 minds of this notion it is only necessary to state the simple 

 fact, 4hat when any vegetable is burned or decays, 96 per cent, 

 on an average of its material composition vanishes into the 

 air. From the air all the organic part came and to the air it 

 returns. Tiie ash, constituting a small but important frac- 

 tion, came from the earth and to the earth it clings. All the 

 nitrogen of plants, and most if not all the carbon comes from 

 the air. It is therefore of the utmost importance that the 

 soil be kept porous, ready to absorb these gases from the 

 air and give them up to the growing plant. 



So far as the soil itself is concerned it must contain pot- 

 ash, soda, lime, and all the inorganic constituents enumerated 

 in the above analysis of the ash of potatoes. If these are 

 present and the soil kept light, the remaining constituents, 

 constituting the great fraction of their weight, will be absorb- 

 ed from the air. We recommend muck and other carbonif- 

 erous manures for potatoes, not so much from the fertilizing 

 material contained in them, as from their absorbing power. 

 Their action is doubtless two fold, chemical and mechanical. 

 That there is fertilizing material in muck and leaf mould no 

 one will deny. There is no organized matter but that in its 

 decay will furnish material for new forms of life. Nature 

 husbands her capital too carefully to allow one particl-j to be 

 lost. Leaf mould is specially abundant in potash and other 

 earthy matter, and hence one reason why potatoes always 

 flourish in a soil just redeemed from the forest. Another rea- 

 son doubtless is, that a soil abounding with carboniferous 

 matter is always light. Air and moisture penetrate it readi- 

 ly and in their passage leave large deposits of enriching gases. 



