186 ANNUAL REPORT. 



withdrawn, so the perfect development of a plant is obstructed, if, indeed its death 

 does not ensue, when one of its means of nourishment fails. It illy becomes us, 

 then, to wonder at failures, and give up the undertaking; our business is to under- 

 stand our business, and know how to feed our plants with what they naturally need 

 to live, grow and bear fruit. 



Allow me here a condensed statement from the experimental researches of emi- 

 nent chemists. They demonstrate that compound substances exist that are 

 chemically alike, but differ in appearance, and differ in all their effects in use. 

 Parian Marble, for instance, and common chalk are called carbonate of lime; they 

 are chemically alike, but unlike in effects. Professor Tyndal says, speaking of the 

 minute shells composing chalk-beds: "These shells are built up of little crystals of 

 calc-spar, and to form these crystals the structural force had to deal with the in- 

 tangible molecules of carbonate of lime." During all these transitions it was 

 carbonate of lime. And there he rests it as he must. Neither he nor his peers can 

 tell us what vital conditions ensued, when "the intangible molecules" climbed into 

 calc-spar, and this into shells, and these into chalk beds. No chemist on earth has 

 been able to trace the vital processes by which nature fits her soils, and waters, and 

 atmospheres for organic forms in regular gradations. Suppose a farmer sows a 

 pulverised quantity of "the intangible molecules of the carbonate of lime" direct 

 from the rock, and an equal quantity of the crumbled stuff from chalk beds; the 

 former will be inefficient compared with the latter. Let him saw sulphate of lime 

 which is known as Plaster of Paris — a valuable article rightly applied — and an equal 

 weight of sulphate of lime made from bones by treating them with sulphuric acid 

 to render them super-phosphate of lime; for a higher class of plants to which it is 

 best adapted, the latter is a very large per cent, ahead of the former. The great dif- 

 ference in the effects of vegetable growth is not owing to ihe acid treatment 

 above. Take the dust of phosphate rock which is compared of phosphoric acid and 

 lime, and have the same relative proportions as in the phosphate from the bone, and 

 treat it (that of the rock) with sulphuric acid, and, as before, the bone in comparison 

 leads in nutritive virtue. Our farmers do or ought to know about these facts, yet 

 they, generally, seem perfectly indifferent when they see buffalo bones by the car- 

 load gleaned from the wild prairies and valleys, shipped into the eastern cities, thus 

 robbing our soil of the best possible dressing almost at our doors. Why, the strange 

 antics of a cow ought to waken the farmer to his senses, when she gnaws bones like 

 a dog. She thus teaches him that his soil and thence his crops are deficient in avail- 

 able phosphate of lime. Will he give her the decaction of a powdered phosphate 

 rock, or a bit of bone dust — which ? We have a plentiful supply of potash, but, 

 pernaps non-adaptable. If direct from the granite or field par, what is it fit for, 

 except to be ground over and over by the plow and harrow, chrystalized and rechrys- 

 talized, pulverized and triturated, and possibly it may then aid in the growing of 

 cereals, preparing the way for fruit plants. Suppose we try, even on the alkali 

 fields, the progressed potashy of wood or grass; that's an improvement; that loves the 

 apple tree and the apple tree courts the favor. 



The night soil will produce effects such as are not warranted by its analysis, and 

 such as cannot be imitated by any synthetical arrangement of similar constituants- 

 Experience also demonstrates the other manures of a high class furnish progressed 

 materials that will produce larger and better crops than even greater quantities of 

 like primaries from a lower class. 



