POTASH IN AGRICULTURE. 125 



potatoes, require a great deal of potash. Dr. Goessmann's anal}^- 

 sis of the ashes of the roots and tops of asparagus showed more 

 than lifty per cent of potash. This convinced the speaker that on 

 man}' soils it is not supplied in sufficient quantity to asparagus, 

 and now he has a bed of an acre and a half on a poor soil that 

 naturall}' produced a growth of pitch pine and birch, and never had 

 a shovelful of dung. It was dressed with potash and bone, and 

 from it were cut the bunches which received the first prize last 

 j-ear. This treatment will be continued until signs of failure are 

 perceived. The cabbage family and all fruits require potash, if it 

 is not in the soil alread}' ; but if there is plenty already it is of no use 

 to apply more, though some cultivators, who have increased their 

 crops by applying it, have made the great mistake of thinking to 

 secure a further increase b}' applying more when there was already 

 enough in the soil. A gentleman in Dighton applied a large 

 quantity of wood ashes to his ground, which added nothing to his 

 crop ; but he had previously dressed it liberally with muriate of 

 potash. Market gardeners near large cities find stable manure the 

 cheapest source of all plant food, and they use it very freely, and 

 find little benefit from the use of ashes or potash ; for where thirty 

 cords of stable manure are used to the acre, as is sometimes done 

 b}' market gardeners, it furnishes all the potash needed. Neither 

 bone nor potash evaporate, and they leach but little. 



Major Henry Emery said that he considered potash the most 

 essential food for all vegetables, especially potatoes ; one hundred 

 bushels of which, with the tops, furnish b^' analj'sis one hundred and 

 seventy-nine pounds of potash and fifty-one pounds of phosphoric 

 acid. In boiling a bushel of washed and peeled potatoes it was 

 found that they lost thirty-two per cent of their potash and twenty 

 per cent of their phosphoric acid, and the water in which they 

 were boiled killed grass when poured on it. In rich lands, or when 

 manured with dung, potatoes are often scabby, but in land newly 

 burnt over, or when manured with potash, they never are. He 

 strews it along his rows of potatoes, and seldom sees a puncture of 

 the skin. Potatoes need more potash than any other crop, but 

 corn will not kernel out at the tips of the ears if there is not suffi- 

 cient potash in the soil. Potash is excellent for grass, and, when- 

 ever applied to it, brings in clover, which contains a large quantit}' 

 of nitrogen. Its action in this respect has never been explained. 

 The speaker thought that potash or any other fertilizer would 

 leach out of a sandj-, gritty soil, unless some green crop, such as 



