410 MONTHLY JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE. 



VEGETABLE FOOD. 



VALUE OF THE INORGANIC INGREDIENTS OF VEGETABLE FOOD, AND PARTICULARLY 

 OF THE PHOSPHATES. 



To read the following, would, one would think, be sufficient, if anything were needed, 

 to show the practical applicability of science to Agriculture, and the criminal supaieness of 

 agticultural communities iu not pro\"iding for a stronger infusion of agricultural knowledge 

 iu the coiu-ses of insti-uction adopted in oui" country schools for the rising generation of 

 American agriculturista. 



I low sincerely do we lament that the waiter, and the few others our countiy can boast of 

 lilce him, accomplished and capable, to exemplify the connection between science and field 

 practice, have so little leisure to favor us in this way. It is, however, a matter for congratu- 

 lation that the bamers which have separated theoiy from practice in the art of cultivation, 

 are eveiy day giving way, and the time fast coming when the practical fai'mer will solicit 

 the good offices of the animal and vegetable chemist, inviting him to walk with him to his 

 stercorary and his fields, as the surest means of securing for his vocation both respect and 

 profit. 

 To the Editor of The Farmers' Library : 



My Dear Sir : In page 6 of Mr. E. N. Horsford's Essay on the Nitrogenous 

 Ingredients of Vegetable Food, is the following passage : 



" The various forms of food derived from grains, herbage and roots furnish — 



lat. Bodies containing nitrogen ; 



2d. Bodies destitute of nitrogen ; 



3d. Inorganic salts — 

 all of which are serviceable in the animal econoni j'. The nitrogenous bodies, from their solution 

 in the blood, form the tissues, the actual organism. The bodies wanting nitrogen contribute, by 

 their more or less perfect combustion, to the warmth of the animal body ; aud the salts of the alka- 

 lies and alkaline earths (the inorganic salts) serve to build up the osseous framework, besides 

 constituting an essential part of every organ of the animal system. Their values for the latter 

 purpose are in proportion to the phosphates their ashes contain." 



Hence will be seen the value of the inorganic ingredients of vegetable food, 

 and particularly of the phosphates. 



Mr. Horsford also states that the difference of the nitrogenous ingredients in 

 different analyses of the same kind of grain probably arises from a difference in 

 the soils in which the samples analyzed were grown. That the differences in 

 the inorganic ingredients of the same kind of grain shown by the various analy- 

 ses of the best chemists arise from the same cause cannot be doubted, and no- 

 toriously in the phosphates ; for we find that when a soil is exhausted of this 

 valuable ingredient, all the nitrogenous manure in the world, without phos- 

 phates, will not produce the cereal grains. 



1 will add, that in feeding young animals whose bones and muscles have yet 

 to grow and enlarge, the importance of a liberal supply of phosphates iu their 

 food is too evident to admit of a doubt. 



The phosphates, then, being clearly next in nutritive value to the nitrogen, it 

 becomes a subject uf the highest interest for the agriculturist to discover by what 

 means, or if at all, he can increase the quantity of these ingredients in the grain 

 and roots on which he feeds his stock. 



This question has not yet been opened by the scientific agriculturists of Eu- 

 rope, and it is one the true sulution of which of right belongs to the Public 

 Model Farm and the Agricultural College; for it combines and links together 

 experiment on the manure and, through the food, on the animal, the Alpha and 

 Omega of Agriculture. 



I have already stated in various publications, that analyses, made at my insti- 

 gation, of Indian corn grown with guano, which contains the phosjjhaies in the 

 fittest state for immediate assiiiiilaiiou by the plow, show about 30 per cent. 



(842) 



