18350 



FARMERS' REGISTER 



389 



Lampadius, in different isolated compartments, 

 some filled with alumine, others with silex, other? 

 with [carbonate of] lime, all pure, has made to 

 grow plants, of which the burning has yielded to 

 analysis like results, and which, consequently, 

 contained earths which were not in the soils which 

 bore them. 



Saussure, in establishing that plants do nol take 

 in the soil mine, than a twentieth of thei 

 stance, in extract of mould and in carbonic acid, 

 has necessarily established, by the same means, 

 that almost the whole amount of fixed principles 

 do not proceed from the soil. 



Braconnot has analyzed lichens, which contain- 

 ed more than half their weight of oxalate oflime 

 ■ — and he has observed others covered with crusts 

 of carbonate of lime, when there was none of this 

 earth in the neighborhood. 



Shrader, in burning plants grown in substances 

 which did not contain any earthy principle, has 

 found in their ashes, earths and salts which were 

 neither in the seeds sown, nor in the pulverized 

 matters in which the plants grew. 



Lastly — the analyses ol Saussure, though show- 

 ing more of the carbonate of lime in the ashes of 

 plants which grew on calcareous soils, than on 

 soils not calcareous, yet nevertheless, they have 

 formed more than a sixth of the ashes from vegeta- 

 bles on silicious soil — and Einhoff has found 65 

 per cent, of lime in the ashes of pines grown on 

 silicious soil.* The labors of science then confirm 

 what we have above established, that plants, or 

 the soil, form salts and earths. t 



*It is presumed, from the context, that these silicious 

 soils, were not the least calcareous. Ed. Farm. Reg. 



f Van Helmont's experiment, cited first in the list 

 above, like M. Puvis' reasoning in general, furnishes 

 ample proof that most of the volatile parts of vegeta- 

 bles, and the greater part of their bulk, are drawn from 

 the atmosphere — and they are equally defective in pro- 

 ving that earths and other fixed principles are thence 

 derived, or are formed by the power of vegetable life. 

 Distilled water is not entirely free from earthy matter, 

 and if it had been used for watering the willow, it 

 would in five years have given some considerable part 

 of the five pounds of solid matter in the ashes. But 

 as we are not told that it was either distilled or rain 

 water, it may be inferred that the comparatively im- 

 pure water of a fountain or stream, was used for wa- 

 tering the plant, and which would more than suffice 

 in so long a time, to convey the wdiole increase of 

 earthy and saline matter. The experiments of Lam- 

 padius and Shrader are liable to the same objection — 

 and the former to this in addition — that his earths were 

 deemed absolutely pure, when, in all probability, they 

 were not so — and that a very slight admixture of other 

 kinds with each, would furnish the minute quantity 

 that a small plant could take up during its short and 

 feeble existence under the circumstances stated. The 

 results stated of the experiments of Braconnot, Saus- 

 sure and Einhoff, may be, and probably are, entirely 

 correct — but they are fully explained by the doctrine 

 of neutral soils, and need no support from, and give 

 none to our author's doctrine of the formation of lime 

 by vegetable power. 



38. The fertilizing effect of fallow, of plough- 

 ing, of moving and working the soil, prove still 



hat ail these circumstances determine the 

 formation of fertilizing principles, and probably of 

 saline principles, in all the parts of the soil which 

 receive the atmospheric influences. 



But sal so formed in plants. The nitrate 



of potash, which takes the place of sugar in the 

 bi •; — the oxalate of potash, so abundant in sorrel 

 — the ci ash in tern, in the tops of 



es, arid in almost all vegetables in the first 

 period oi their life — the sulphate of potash in to- 

 bacco — the nitrate of potash in turnsole and in pel- 

 litory — prove, without reply, that vegetation iorms 

 salis, as it forms the. proper juices of plants, since 

 the si.il contains the one kind no more than the 

 oilier. But can we say where plants take the ele- 

 ments necessary for all these formations? They 

 can take them only in the soil by means of their 

 roots, or in the atmosphere — in the soil, which 

 would itself take them in the atmosphere, in pro- 

 portion to the consumption of plants — or directly 

 in the atmosphere by means of their leaves which 

 would there gather these elements. And if the 

 analyses of the soils, and of the atmosphere, show 

 almost none oi' these elements, it would be neces- 

 sary to conclude from it, thai the substances which 

 analysis has found there, are themselves, or would 

 furnish, if decomposed, the elements of the saline 

 substances, although science may not yet have 

 taught us the means of reaching that end. 



39. The formation of lime, like that of the sa- 

 line principles necessary to plants, is an operation 

 which employs all the forces of vegetation — and 

 these forces, directed to this formation, have no en- 

 ergy left to give a great developemeut to plants: 

 hut when the vegetable finds the calcareous prin- 

 ciples already formed in the soil, it makes use of 

 them, and preserves all its forces to increase its 

 own vigor and size. 



It would then result, from all that has been said, 

 that lime modifies the texture of the soil — makes 

 it more friable — invigorates it — renders it more per- 

 meable — gives it the power to better resist mois- 

 ture as well as dryness— that it produces in the 

 soil the humate of lime which encloses a power- 

 ful means of fertility — that lime increases much 

 the energy of the soil and of plants to draw from 

 the atmosphere the volatile substances of which 

 plants are composed, oxygen, hydrogen, carbon 



But though deeming Mr. Puvis altogether wrong in 

 this, his main and most labored position, and that the 

 proofs cited above, as well as some others in the pre- 

 ceding section, are of no worth, still these pages which 

 present his theory ,'contain what is of more value. He 

 places in a strong point of view the important truth 

 that the atmosphere is the great treasury of manure, 

 from which nature doubles and triples the amount of 

 all the small portions given to the earth by the indus- 

 try of man. The author's scale of actual products 

 from ditferent grades of sod is also interesting. It sus- 

 tains the position assumed in the Essay on Calcareous 

 Manures, that the worst soils are limed (or made cal- 

 careous) to most profit — and that alimentary manures, 

 when needed, are most productive on the best soils. — 

 Ed. Farm. Reg. 



