48 



TRUCK-FARMING AT THE SOUTH. 



Ashes are the product of combustion, and in their ef- 

 fect are somewhat similar to that of decaying and mould- 

 ing vegetable matter. When the use of potash is indi- 

 cated, and ashes of hard- wood can be obtained, they are a 

 safer and much more satisfactory and effective fertilizer 

 than the German potash salts; for they contain all the min- 

 eral elements of plant food which the tree had derived from 

 the soil. They are, of course, void of nitrogen; but tend to 

 render nitrogen and other soil ingredients available. 

 They also amend the physical condition of heavy soils, 

 and are adapted to those of sandy character. Measures 

 should be devised to save the ashes of cities as manure. 

 A bushel of unleached ashes weighs about forty-eight 

 pounds; a "struck" bushel of leached ashes, fifty- 

 seven pounds, and one " heaped," about seventy-one 

 pounds. A dressing of fifty bushels of unleached ashes 

 to the acre, at forty-eight pounds to the bushel, would 

 give two hundred pounds of potash; seven hundred and 

 sixty-eight pounds of lime; one hundred and twenty 

 pounds of magnesia; forty-eight pounds of phosphoric 

 acid, and thirty-six pounds of sulphuric acid. 



QUICK-LIME. 



Ammonia is not produced in organic matter until pu- 

 trefaction commences, when nitrogen and hydrogen com- 

 bine in the proportions of one to three to form it. 



If quick-lime is added before the process begins, the 

 lime unites with the nitric acid, and forms nitrate of 

 lime, fixing or retaining the nitrogen; but when the lime 

 is added to stable manure in fermentation, or to Peruvian 

 guano, or to ground fish- scrap, or to any other substance 

 containing ammonia, the ammonia escapes into the air, 



