LECTURES AND ESSAYS READ AT INSTITUTES. 99 



of their purity and value. In other states no conimercial fertilizers are 

 allowed to be put on the market before they have been analyzed and their 

 value certified by an officer of the law, but nothing of the kind is required in 

 this State. While some excellent commercial fertilizers are in our market, 

 yet the fact that parties in Ohio within a few months past tried to secure 

 agents in Michigan to sell a '''superphosphate" which was nothing hut log 

 lime or marl, shows that some protection is needed. Here is some of this 

 Buckeye superphosphate. 



WOOD ASHES. 



Among the most common and most valuable of special manures I place 

 wood ashes. The composition of ashes varies somewhat according to the 

 kind of wood from which they are obtained ; but we may safely take the ash 

 of the body of the beach tree to represent the average composition of wood 

 ashes. Wood ashes contain all the required elements of plant nutrition, 

 except nitrogen. In 100 pounds of wood ashes there are 16 pounds of potash, 

 worth 80 cents; 3^ pounds soda, 2 cents; 67 pounds lime and magnesia, 8 

 cents; 5^ pounds phosphoric acid, 26 cents: total, $1.16. If we had to buy 

 in market in the cheapest form the manurial materials contained in 100 

 pounds wood ashes, it would cost §1.16. Can you afford to throw away such 

 valuable materials, or to sell them for sixpence a bushel to the soap-boiler.'* 

 No argument is needed ; here is the value, and there is the selling price. 

 Draw your own conclusions. 



Even when ashes have been leached and washed to the last degree they still 

 have value because the phosphates and carbonates of lime and magnesia still 

 remain and are worth 34 cents a hundred, or $6.80 per ton of leached ashes. 

 These materials are insoluble and permanent. 



The market gardeners of Long Island knew the value of leached ashes, and 

 sent ships 1,000 miles to bring the leached ashes of Maine to New York, even 

 when the ashes had to be hauled many miles before reaching the ship. 



But I will not consume time to tell how they do things down east, but 

 instead will give you my experience with leached ashes in Eaton county. 

 More than thirty years ago I settled in Vermontville and bought a home lot, 

 or as I told my wife, "I fenced in 2| acres of Paradise." The soil was a stiff 

 boulder clay, and had been exhausted by a rotation consisting of wheat stubble 

 followed by wheat. I planted it all to fruit. I kept a cow and three horses, 

 for in that thinly settled section long rides and short fees were the rule for a 

 country doctor. I had plenty of stable manure and used it freely. But I 

 soon found that the excess of stable manure gave my pears the fire blight, 

 made my apple trees run to water-sprouts and suckers, and my grapes ran 

 wild in wildwood. I then turned my attention to a pile of leached ashes near 

 by, and had 75 to 80 tons of these ashes scattered over my field. No more 

 fire-blight or water-sprouts, but golden fruit in bountiful supply. 



Like my ever-so-great-grandfather Adam, after a time I left my paradise, 

 which finally came into the possession of Mrs. B., in exchange for a 160-acre 

 farm. Some years ago her son told me that she received more money from 

 the sale of fruit from that 2|- acre orchard than she had received from the 160 

 acre farm. I wandered through the place a few weeks ago and found the soil 

 had not forgotten the liberal dose of leached ashes applied more than twenty- 

 five years ago. 



I do not want to " make a corner" in ashes, but if you can get any — even 

 if they have been leached and washed for fifty years — by drawing them five 



