1838] 



FARMERS' REGISTER 



367 



of plants planted in it; so as to enable them to 

 tiike firm hold of the soil lor support, or to pene- 

 trate more easilj' into the soil, in every direction 

 that tlie roots may require. As when clay is add- 

 ed to sand, or sand to clay, to nialic it more or 

 less adhesive. 



A manure may also aUer the texture of a soil, 

 in relation to its caparitij for imbibing or rctain- 

 ins; moisture. The hot climate and lonfj-conti- 

 nued droucrhts of the Carolinas and (ieortria, re- 

 quire a ditierent texture in this respect, from the 

 moist and misty climates of Ireland, or the high- 

 lands ol" Scotland. 



A portion of clay consisting of one hundred 

 parts by weight, being wetted until no more wa- 

 ter would drop from it, was found to have imbibed 

 and retained two times and a half its weight of 

 water: the same weight of chalk (carbonate of 

 lime,) retained one half its weight; and the same 

 weight of silicious sand, one quarter of its weight. 

 These experiments made by Bergman, are cited 

 by Mr. Kirwan, in his treatise " On Manures," 

 (p. 45.) The experiments of Fabroni are to the 

 same purpose. Hence, whether the first men- 

 tioned, or the last mentioned intention be required 

 to be fulfilled, clay or marl is a proper manure for 

 sand, and sand for clay, and calcareous earth for 

 both. Eut the constituent portions of the vari- 

 ous earths in a soil, fertile as to its capacity for re- 

 taining moisture, cannot be ascertained until very 

 many facts and experiments have been observed 

 and detailed, beyond what we know at present: 

 and in relation also, not merely to the quantity of 

 rain that falls in an average of years on a given 

 place, but to the relative proportion of dry and 

 wet weather on the average of a series of years. 

 Thus, at Stockport and Manchester, in England, 

 the yearly fall of rain will be about 35 inches, ac- 

 cording to Dr. Percival, and the number of rainy 

 days may amount to 234 in a year, as a friend of 

 ours has counted. As many cubic inches of rain 

 may fiill in Charleston in a dozen days, as in the 

 234 days of rain in the neighborhood of Man- 

 chester ; so that the expression of a moist and 

 rainy climate, relates not so much to the quantity 

 of rain that tiills, as to the number of days and 

 hours the rain occupies in falling. Fifty inches of 

 rain per annum, with three months of drought, 

 will not constitute a rainy climate. 



Probably, five parts of silicious sand, three parts 

 of calcareous earth, or carbonate of lime, and two 

 parts of pure argillaceous earth, would be a mix- 

 ture that might deserve to be regarded as fertile, 

 as to the view now under consideration. The 

 proposal of General Beatson to manure with clay 

 baked in an oven, or half burnt, so as to be per- 

 fectly friable and pulverizable without losing its 

 capacity for imbibing and retaining moisture, 

 seems \o us an improvement of no slight impor- 

 tance. Trusting to his description and calcula- 

 tions, we regard the expense as very moderate. 

 So treated, the clay can be ground into a coarse 

 powder, and intimately mixed wiih the soil which 

 it is meant to improve. 



Besides the ways and manners above mention- 

 ed,^ manures may be applied also to stimulate the 

 living fibres nf the plant; and they may be ap- 

 plied as a pabulum or food, to notirish the plant. 

 Hitherto, in all the British publications on ma- 

 nures, they are considered either as acting me- 

 chanically, or by their chemical decomposition as 



all()rding the substances which are taken up aa 

 niitritnent. Kirwan, indeed, "On Manures," (p. 

 48) seems to think that saline substances may 

 act as condiments to plants; and enable them to 

 take up more food. His excepting gypsum, arose 

 l>om his considerinnr this substance as a septic, !i 

 promoter of putrefaction in veijetables; and, ihere- 

 liire, as haviniT no other action than Avhat it ex- 

 erted on the dead mattnr employed as a manure. 

 Sir H. Davy, in his fifth Lecture, seems to think 

 it necessary' to combat the notion that vegetables 

 are possessed of life in the same sense as animals; 

 whose life he seems to consider as emanating 

 from a superior immaterial ptinciple. We shall 

 cite the passage in a note,* and only observe upon 



* Elements of AgncuUural Chemisin;, (p- 170.) — 

 " It is impossible to peruse any considerable part of 

 the vegetable statics of Hales, without receiving a 

 deep impression of the dependence of the motion of 

 the sap upon common physical agencies. In the same 

 tree, this sagacious person observed, that in a cold 

 cloudy morning, when no sap ascended, a sudden 

 change was produced by a gleam of sunshine of half 

 an hour, and a vigorous motion of the fluid. The al- 

 teration of the wind from the south to the north, im- 

 mediately checked the effect. On the coming on of a 

 cold afternoon after a hot day, the sap that had been 

 rising began to fall. A warm shower and a sleet 

 storrn produced opposite eflects." [Well : is there 

 any physiologist who denies the effect of heat and 

 cold, upon physiological action? Are not the manifes- 

 tations of life'in the winter-torpidity of cold-blooded 

 animals dependent on these changes?] 



"Many of his observations likewise show, that the 

 different powers which act on the adult tree, produce 

 different effects at different seasons. Thus in the ear- 

 ly spring, before the buds expand, the variations of 

 temperature, and changes of the state of the atmo- 

 sphere, with regard to moisture and dryness, exert 

 their great effects upon the expansion and contraction 

 of the' vessels; and then the tree is in what the garden- 

 ers call, its bleeding season." [And is not the physi- 

 ological effect of atmospheric dryness and moisture 

 equally apparent in the human frame; in phtisis, in 

 asthma, in rheumatism, in gout?] " When the leaves 

 are fully expanded: the great determination of the sap 

 is to these new organs. Hence, a tree which emits 

 sap copiously from a wound, while the buds are open- 

 ing, will no "longer emit it in summer when leaves are 

 perfect; but in the variable weather towards the end of 

 autumn, when the leaves are falling, it will again pos- 

 sess the power of bleeding in a very slight degree in 

 the warmest days, but at no other time." [Who ever 

 doubted that heat and cold acted respectively as a sti- 

 mulus and a sedative on the animal fibre?] 



"In all these circumstances, there is nothing analo- 

 gous to the irritable action of animal systems. In ani- 

 mal systems, the heart and arteries are in constant 

 pulsation. Their functions are unceasingly performed 

 in all climates and in all seasons; in winter as well as 

 in spring, upon the arctic snows and under the tropi- 

 cal suns. They neither cease in the periodical returns 

 of their nocturnal sleep, common to most animals, nor 

 in the long sleep of winter peculiar to a few species. 

 The power is connected with animation, is limited to 

 bein2;s possessing the means of voluntary locomotion; 

 it co-exists with the first appearance of vitality, it dis- 

 appears only with the last spark of life." [Can Sir 

 H. Davy tell us how the partial suspension ot vitality 

 during winter in vegetables, differs from the same phe- 

 nomenon in cold-blooded animals? Have not both the 

 one and the other a vital power of resisting to a great de- 

 gree, the effects of cold, and of preserving the vegeta- 

 ble and animal temperature unaffected by the atmo- 

 spheric change? Can Sir H. Davy make the alligator 



