1880,] TRANSACTIONS. 11 



Dried and finely ground meat, bone, blood and offal are not 

 soluble until they have undergone decomposition, or have been 

 broken down with some acid. The same may be said of fish 

 refuse and various other articles, although they decompose readily 

 by composting. 



All cereals want ammonia as the leading element ; root crops, 

 phosphoric acid and potash ; clover, phosphoric acid and potash ; 

 and, altliough the analysis of clover shows a very large amount 

 of nitrogen or ammonia, the application of that to the soil for 

 clover does not benefit that crop to any great extent. 



It has been said that a chemist can make an artificial soil con- 

 taining all the elements of plant growth, and that soil may still 

 be sterile. Its potash may be in feldspar rock, its phosphoric 

 acid in Canada apatite, its ammonia in some other form and all 

 of them locked up in insoluble combinations. And an analysis 

 of it by a chemist with his powerful acids, will show all of these 

 articles in abundance, and still not a particle available for plant 

 food. And here another very proper inquiry comes in, and that 

 is why you cannot analyze the soil itself and find out its wants so 

 as to doctor it understandingly. The answer is that the cliemist's 

 acid will truly discover all that there is in the sample tested, and 

 show an abundance of plant food when there is really nothing 

 available. It is not sufficient that tlie soil contain all that is 

 necessary to plant growth but it must be able to give them to the 

 plant in due quantity and proportion. 



Ur. Nichols estimates that a cord of barnyard manure weighs 

 3000 pounds, divided as follows : Water, 2456 pounds ; sand, 138 

 pounds ; carbonaceous matter of no more value than straw, 332 

 pounds ; leaving only 74 pounds of really valuable matter. This is 

 divided again as follows : Nitrogen, $2.60 ; potash, equal to 1 J bush- 

 els of wood ashes, $0.35 ; salt, bone and gypsum, $0.50 ; carbona- 

 ceous matter, $0.10 ; value of the cord of manure of 3000 pounds, 

 $3.55. Dr. Dana says that a cord of fresh cow manure weighs 

 9289 pounds, in which there is 7728 pounds of water. I call 

 your attention to this because men who are canvassing for the 

 sale of fertilizers, are very likely to, and do call the attention of 

 farmers and gardeners to the enormous expense to which they are 

 putting themselves by hauling to their fields this great amount of 

 water in a cord of manure, 7728 pounds ! and they go on and 

 tell them that it is no better than ditch water. And that is true 

 after all the elements that promote plant growth are taken out. 

 But does not much of the value of manure come from the fact 

 that it is so finely subdivided by passing through the animal 

 organism, and being in the finely diluted condition found in the 

 manure and water ; and then when one says that the water is use- 



