108 OF THE INORGANIC 



The experience of a proprietor of land in the 

 vicinity of Gottingen offers a most remarkable 

 example of the incapability of a soil to produce 

 wheat or grasses in general, when it fails in any 

 one of the materials necessary to their growth. 

 In order to obtain potash, he planted his whole 

 land with wormwood, the ashes of which are well 

 known to contain a large proportion of the car- 

 bonate of that alkali. The consequence was,, that 

 he rendered his land quite incapable of bearing 

 grain for many years, in consequence of having 

 entirely deprived the soil of its potash. 



The leaves and small branches of trees contain 

 the most potash ; and the quantity of them which 

 is annually taken from a wood, for the purpose of 

 being employed as litter*, contain more of that 

 alkali than all the old wood which is cut down. 

 The bark and foliage of oaks, for example, contain 

 from 6 to 9 per cent, of this alkali ; the needles of 

 firs and pines 8 per cent. 



With every 2650 Ibs. of fir-wood, which are 

 yearly removed from an acre of forest, only from 

 0*114 to 0*53 Ibs. of alkalies are abstracted from 

 the soil, calculating the ashes at 0.83 per cent. 



* [This refers to a custom some time since very prevalent in Germany, 

 although now discontinued. The leaves and small twigs of trees were 

 gleaned from the forests by poor people, for the purpose of being used 

 as litter for their cattle. The trees, however, were found to suffer so 

 much in consequence, that a strict prohibition is now placed against 

 their removal. The cause of the injury was that stated in the text. 

 TRANS.] 



