CULTIVATED MOWING-LANDS. 123 



fined to their alkaline constituents. We usually estimate 

 the potash, without taking much account of the soda. We 

 must remember that there is a trace of soda running through ; 

 but it is so small, that we generally sa}^ but little about that, 

 and estimate it all as potash. In ashes we get soluble phos- 

 phoric acid, and we get soluble silica, which I think is a 

 very important agent. These ashes come from burnt vege- 

 tation ; and you are simply putting back on the land all 

 those constituents which the land requires. You get in 

 those ashes precisely what your plants want in the form 

 of soluble silica and phosphoric acid ; and especially largely 

 predominating over every thing else is the element of potash. 

 I think we have under-estimated the value of potash on our 

 lands. The mistake has arisen, in great measure, from the 

 fact that we have been looking to the results of English 

 analyses. I have found that in England they do not think 

 very much of potash, and do not speak of it with very much 

 emphasis ; but on the other hand, so far as my experience 

 goes, it seems to me that potash on our land is very impor- 

 tant indeed. I fully coincide with the views advanced here 

 by Mr. Moore with reference to the use of potash witli bone. 

 I have found extraordinary good results from that combina- 

 tion. I think if you can get Canada ashes, and mix them 

 with bone in the proportion of two or three barrels of ashes 

 to one of raw ground bone, and allow the mixture to ferment 

 a little, mixing in with it a small portion of sulphate of lime 

 (common gypsum), you will make a fertilizer which is une- 

 -qualled in value ; and it is very simple. I remember recom- 

 mending bone and ashes at a meeting of this Board a few 

 years ago ; and I come back to that again with a great deal 

 •of pleasure. I have plots of land in my fields which have 

 not been manured for fifteen years ; and my men inquire of 

 me, " How does it happen that we are getting such crops 

 ■of grass here, without putting on any manure ? " I am free 

 to say that it astonishes me, — the persistency with which 

 bones will give us continuous crops, especially in association 

 with wood-ashes. 



Question. Will not salt do as well as gypsum ? 



Dr. Nichols. Oh, no ! I do not think that I can safely 

 recommend salt. I do not think that we receive any benefit 

 from salt : on the other hand, I think we receive injury from 



