8a ESSEX SOCIETY. 



greatly accelerated by it. We shall have occasion to allude to 

 this hereafter. 



We come now to the use of ashes as a top dressing. Of 

 this we may speak with more confidence. For while experi- 

 ments with lime have not invariably proved successful, owing, 

 probably, to the soils designed to be benefited, we know of 

 no instances in which the application of ashes has not fully re- 

 paid the expense. If farmers would bear in mind that ashes 

 contain all the elements which assist the growth of plants, they 

 would be unwilling to part with a substance which they might 

 turn to such profit. If the quantity is small, let it be husband- 

 ed with the greater care, instead of being sold, with the idea 

 that so few can do no good. One substantial farmer says, " I 

 am now, more than ever, fully persuaded of the value of ashes 

 as a manure. Nothing in the whole catalogue of manures, 

 compares with them on my land. The soil was a thin clayey 

 loam, and where the ashes were sown, there was a crop of ex- 

 cellent clover, where for years the land had been almost unpro- 

 ductive." 



Grasses are more benefited by ashes than other crops, since 

 they require a greater amount of the salts which ashes con- 

 tain. For all permanent mowing lands, especially on the 

 lighter soils, ashes are among the cheapest of manures. In 

 parts of Flanders and Belgium, countries in which the science 

 of agriculture has been carried to a higher perfection than in 

 any other part of Europe, the great loss of vegetable matters 

 from the soil is constantly restored by ashes or bones, together 

 with other manures to be mentioned hereafter. Indeed, al- 

 most all agriculturists, both in Europe and America, have 

 attached very great importance to the use of ashes. In some 

 parts of Germany they are held in so high esteem that they 

 are transported to a distance of eighteen or twenty miles, to 

 be used as a top dressing. According to Prof. Liebig, with 



equivalent for ihat removctl by the crops. The hme is the key, merely, by which you 

 opened the magazine of food contained in the soil. But it not unfrequcntly happens, that it 

 may itself supply an absent constituent of the soil, especially in cases such as clover and 

 grasses which experience niiicli benefit from this article. There is no manure more benefi- 

 cially used, or more disgracefully abused, than Vimc."— European Agriculture, II, page 

 361, Note. 



