C. T. JACKSON^S ADDRESS. 



451 



those bushes and trees requiring a larger proportion of potash 

 than pine trees. By comparing the composition of the ashes 

 of the oak and the pine, this difference will be at once no- 

 ticed : 



The ashes of the oak, Quercus Ruber, contains. That of pitch pine, Pinus Picet. 



— Annales de Cheni. et Phar. Wohler. 



The oak contains more alkaline matter than the pine, and 

 less phosphoric acid. Hence we can at once understand why the 

 oak grows on the soil where a pine forest has been destroyed 

 by fire. The red raspberry is also remarkable for the large 

 proportion of potash it contains, and every spot where a fire 

 has been kindled in the woods of Maine, is, in a few years, 

 covered with an abundant growth of this plant. So, also, in 

 New Hampshire, the raspberry springs up in luxuriance on 

 burnt lands. The raspberry also clings closely to rocks, and 

 thrives best near granite ledges and old stone walls, on account 

 of the alkaline matter they yield to its roots. New soils, rich 

 in potash minerals, are not unfrequently overgrown very soon 

 by raspberry and blackberry vines. In order to estimate the 

 importance of the saline matters removed from the soil by 

 crops, let us examine the results obtained by Boussingault, a 

 distinguished chemist and agriculturist of France. He esti- 

 mates the proportions of inorganic matter contained in each 

 year's crop of grass from his meadows, as follows : 



Phosphoric acid. 

 Sulphuric acid, 



1,254 pounds, 

 627 " 



