AGRICULTURE WITH CHEMISTRY. 



137 



and leaves of vegetables, may be destroyed by alkaline 

 salts and hot lime ; which substances have the power of 

 dissolving the continuity or texture of organic bodies? 

 and are particularly fatal to the soft bodies of living in- 

 sects. Insects are likewise to be destroyed by neutral 

 salts, and by saline bituminous substances. The bodies 

 of these inse6ts, when dissolved by putrefaction, become, 

 like other animal matters, serviceable to vegetation. 



The vitriolic acid will also a<5l in destroying insects and 

 other animal substances, in a manner somewhat similar 

 to alkaline salts, with this difference only, that the one 

 forms an acid, the other an alkaline sapo. 



Vitriolic acid, diluted with a due proportion of water, 

 and superacidulated vitriolic salts, may likewise be used 

 with a double effeft, in die destruction of insects, in 

 ground long under cultivation, and which contains much 

 animal and vegetable matter, in the state of phosphat 

 and oxalat of lime. In this case, not only the insects will 

 be killed, but the vitriolic acid will, by superior affinity, 

 combine with the calcareous matter of the phosphat and 

 oxalat of lime, whose disengaged acids will form new 



s soluble, 



