156 



It ■will be our aim in this article to point out the relation of the seve- 

 ral crops, usually cultivated in our State, to the soil, by exhibiting their 

 chemical composition, which has been determined by repeated analysis of 

 their ashes, thus showing the materials which they severally remove from 

 the land upon which they are grown, and the condition in which they 

 leave it, when they are removed, and, as a kind of ** improvement " of 

 the subject, to offer such practical suggestions as may be deemed of inte- 

 rest and profit to the agriculturist. 



The true, or all the relations of crops to soils, require that we should 

 take into consideration also the organic elements of crops and of soils ;• 

 but, as the soils of the several districts of Wisconsin, except, perhaps, 

 the so called sandstone district, along the Wisconsin River, and portions 

 of the districts north of that, have a large portion of organic matter in 

 them — say an average of 10 per cent — (See Dr. Owen's Report to the 

 General Government, as quoted by Mr. Lapham, in the first volume of 

 the Transactions of the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society, p. 127; 

 also, Prof. Jas. V. Z. Blaney's Analysis of Prairie Soil, in Patent Office 

 Report, Agricultural, for 1849-50, p. 489,) it is thought best, at present, 

 to confine ourselves wholly to the inorganic portion of plants and soils. 



The following Table, compiled from various sources, exhibits the 

 amount of essential elements in a productive soil. Some crops, it is 

 true, may grow upon a soil destitute of some of these ingredients, or 

 rather of some portion of them ; but the Table is designed to furnish the 

 elements for the generality of crops : 



TABLE I. 



IN EVERY HUNDRED POUNDS. 



Organic Matter 10.00 



Silica, Quartz 64.80 



Lime 5.90 



Magnesia 80 



Potash 3.00 



Soda 4.00 



Chlorine 20 



Sul. Acid 25 



Phos. Acid 3.05 



Alumina 5.70 



Ox. Iron 2.00 



Ox. Manganese 30 



100.00 



