248 



MONTHLY JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE. 



and charcoal; this corn was extremely sound; 

 part of the lot had sedge-hay plowed in, part old 

 corn stumps burned up and spread over, which 

 part was decidedly best. 



South Farm. Just purchased; the land has 

 had no manure for seven years ; part of this was 

 planted with yellow corn on June 4th, and ma- 

 nured as follows: 14 loads of very coarse stuff 

 was carted out on May llth, to which was add- 

 ed lime, ground bone and sulphate of ammonia, 

 and wetted with a solution of sulphate of soda; 

 cut up on Sept. 2.5th, and yielded nearly three 

 times as much as the same quantity of ground 

 ) planted to yellow corn in the same lot ; planted 

 ) two weeks before ; but with common yard ma- 

 I nure, from experience I find the addition of 

 I lime, ground bone, and sulphate of ammonia. 



converts our common yard manure into a valua- 

 ble compost, requiring much less quantity in the 

 hill or on the ground, and producing nearly as 

 much again; this I find by repeated experi- 

 ments, and at small cost; 100 lbs. of sulphate of 

 ammonia, at a cost of $8, lasting mc for all my 

 manure heaps for a year, with 2 horses and 3 

 cows and 3 hogs. I have made 110 two-horse 

 wagon loads of good manure, adding any rough 

 stuff I could scrape together, and each load 

 when well-rotted, sufficiently to pl«iw under, 

 weighed not less than 20 cwt. each. My plan 

 is to make up my heap : on the top, spead fine 

 charcoal and sulphate of lime, and cover it up 

 with soil; in 12 to 18 days I have found it suffi- 

 ciently fine to use. 



> 



PETZHOLDT AND LIEBIG. 



REMARKS ON THEIR IDEAS IN RELATION TO GREEN CROPS. 



To the Editor of the Farmers' Library : 



Sir: I have been much pleased in looking 

 over your periodical with the extensive range 

 of subjects relating to Agriculture that you pro- 

 pose to keep the public informed on, and it is 

 "with the hope that yourself or some one as capa- 

 ble, may afford the desired information, that I 

 submit the following remarks. 



A perusal of Petzholdt's lectures, while it 

 places in relief the views of Liebig, and pre- 

 sents clearly to us several true principles, cer- 

 tainly suggests many defects, both in the lectures 

 themselves and in the chemistiy of Agriculture, 

 and our reliance on the certainty of chemical de- 

 ductions has been much diminished by fallacies, 

 as they seem to us, in his reasoning. The defi- 

 nition of soil, for example, would have answer- 

 ed his own argument better, had he considered 

 it a medium to supply inorganic nourishment 

 and support to the plant. This would have in- 

 cluded the ocean, which, by his own .showing, 

 and by the analysis of others, contains all the 

 elements, mineral and gaseous, necessary to the 

 growth of its numerous vegetable tribes. These 

 elements are soluble, and, therefore, is the sea 

 the most perfect soil, because the nourishment 

 it contains is in a complete state for the assimi- 

 lation of vegetable life ; in the very state, to 

 which a scientific Agriculture endeavors to re- 

 duce annually', a part of the super-stratum of the 

 earth. 



His ideas, in relation to green crops, are more 

 extreme, if possible, than Liebig's; and, if true, 

 should forever discourage any attempts at ad- 

 ding humus to the soil ; unless when the farmer 

 has sufficient capital to resort to other methods ; 

 or if any should be tried, clover, and clover only, 

 inasmuch as all other green crops require too 

 (.500) 



much cultivation to pay their expense, or their 

 roots do not penetrate far enough into the subsoil, 

 to drawitscon.«titueutsupto the soil proper. Yet 

 this last consideration has been vindicated by 

 experience, since it was first proposed, a hun- 

 dred years ago. And I apprehend few persons 

 have given a fair trial to other green crops, on 

 a soil deficient in humus, but are satisfied that it 

 is better to employ them, than to \\-ait for the 

 disintegrating influence of time and frost. Very 

 few are the American agriculturists who have a 

 knowledge of Chemistry, who do not think, with 

 Liebig himiself that plants differ in their growth, 

 according to the scarcity or abundance of hu- 

 mus in the soil. 



It is evident that the disintegrating power of 

 the plant itself, is left wholly out of account, and 

 consequently that plants are merely passive with 

 respect to the soil. But calculate the amount of 

 inorganic constituents taken from the soil by 

 several exhausting crops, and, we doubt not, 

 you will find it far exceeds the amount fitted for 

 assimilation by the agencies of air and water, 

 and to this will a proper system of rotation in 

 some measure have reference. 



It is a great defect in the present system of 

 organic chemistry, that the agriculturist has no 

 accessible means of determining the exhaust- 

 ing power of his crops. It will not, I sup- 

 pose, be answered, that the per cent, of ashes 

 of plants is determined. I find that chem- 

 ists differ very widely in respect to this; and I 

 find that the diversity becomes still more evi- 

 dent, when of these ashes \ve w^ish to calculate 

 the component parts. I notice a remarkable 

 agreement in the analyses of wheat, pp. 69 and 

 70, and of that alone. But I would know, when 

 we reap 10 bushels of a particular species of 



