278 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER, 



MARCH -3, 1841. 



ann horticultural rfgister. 

 Boston, Wednesday, March 3, 1841. 



sisls entirely of saline inalleis, as urate, phospiiate and | Mr Newloii, President of the Berkshire Agricultuial 

 I cirljo.nate of ammcni^i. liut Dr. J. has asrerlaimd ihnt i .Society, h:.ri found caustic lime as a top dre.«sing, fail the 



SEVENTH AGRICULTURAL MEETING AT THE 



STATE HOUSK. 

 Dr. C. T. J.ickson, who had been announced as our 

 speaker for the evening, staled that he had had no leis- 

 ure fir writing out his views, and therefore must draw 

 out, as he proceeded, from the stores which niemory had 

 laid up durin;; the years he had devi ted to Agriculhiral 

 Cheniislry. The t-arihy parts of nil soils are iortned bt' 

 the disinlpgraliou or crumbling of rocks. A soil is in its 

 nature (the earthy part of it,) like tlie rock from which 

 it was originally formed. There are simple soils formed 

 from u single kind of rock; and there ;ire compound 

 soils, tlie diluvial and alluvial, formed by a mixture of 

 the crumblings of rocks that are different in tluir nature- 

 The great current of witters that once swept over this 

 porti<>n of the earth, together with smaller and oli-r^- 

 peated currents, have been great agents in producing 

 these mixtures. These comminglings of different earths 

 have contributed much to its fertility. Silex (i. e. sand) 

 when found alone, is of too open or loose a texture ; and 

 so is carbonii'ls of lime ; while alumina (cliy) is too ad- 

 hesive. Any one of the earths, when ahme, is barren. 

 In every good soil there is a mixture of silex, carbonate 

 of lime and alumina — (sand, lirtie and clay.) For the 

 production of certain kinds of plant." the soil must con- 

 tain other earths ; clover, for instance, requires gypsum. 

 The grains require phosphates of" lime and magnesia. 



An aciii soiljisnol good; neither is au alk.iline one : 

 it should be neutral. The eartliy or mineral parts of a 

 soil may vary much in their proportions, and yet the 

 soil may be good ; one in which sand predominates or 

 one in which clay prevails may be good. But it is not 

 so with the acids and alkalies ; these must be neutral- 

 ized, (made equal, or made to counterabt each other.) — 

 The acids result from the decaying of vegetable matter, 

 as trees , leaves, grasses, &c., while alkalies come from the 

 putrofactiim and decay of animal matters, as flesh, dung, 

 urine, &c. 



The earthy matters, ..ii'sand, clay and the like, need 

 to be mixed with cither -vegetable or animal matter or 

 both, bdfore there can be inuch fertility. This mixture 

 has been going on through all the ages in which trees, 

 leaves, gra ses, plants have been decaying, and through 

 which animals have been living and m-uildcring away. 

 The original plants which grew before there was vege- 

 table mould, were probably very hardy and of such a 

 nature as to take much of their nourishment from the 

 atmosphere and from water. The opinion has lieon ad- 

 vanced by Ad. Broaniart, that originally the atmosphere 

 contained more carbonic acid than al present, and thus 

 was fitted to nourish plants which, in their dec-ay, .should 

 fit the soil to nourish other and more valuable plants ; 

 and these plants in their growth by absorbing the car- 

 bonic acid, were fitting the atmosphere to support the 

 higher orders of animal life. 



Our usual plants require carbon and nitrogen to per- 

 fect their growth ; ;ind though they obtain a partial sup- 

 ply Irom the atmosphere, they cannot from that source 

 alone derive a sufficiency for makingthem produce flow- 

 ers and seeds. They must get some elsewhere. Con- 

 sequently, t/ie /jro/>eriiCS o/ the soil in which they tiike 

 root are of importance. To the organic matter in the 

 soil, the [)lant goes to obtain much of its food. I.iebig 

 has doubted this, because tiy applying guano (a manure 

 from S. America,) to a soil that had neither vegetable 

 nor animal matter in it, he has rendered that soil very 

 fertile. He goes upon the presumptic n that guano con- 



this guano contains the usual ingredients of common fer- 

 tile soils, besides a very large q. antity of ammoriiacal 

 salts. (Therefore we may hold on yet to the common 

 notion that it is important to have some organic matter, 

 some vegetable or animal matter, something in addition 

 to sand, clay, &c. in the soil of our fields.) 



Where vegetables decay, a brown substance is formed, 

 which is usually called vegetable mould. This sub- 

 stance contains niticli carbon, (food for plants,) but it 

 likewise contains many acids. These acids, in their 

 free state, are injurious to vegetation . where a tree is 

 rotting nothing will grow ; hence farmi t.< have thought 



first year, though it produced good effects the folluwing- ' 

 season. His experience in every respect confirmed Dr. - 

 Jackson's opinions. Soil and marsh mud may be used . 

 instetid of muck, but are not equally valuable. 



[We trust that farmers will preserve this paper, and ■ 

 that when the proper season arrives, some of them will ' 

 (billow slrictlij the rules here given for directing them in 

 the use of lime.] 



BOSTON CULTIVATORS REPORT OF DR. JACK- 

 SON'S REMARKS. 



As Editor, we have nothing to say to our neighbor re- 

 , J 1 1 J ,_ , latiog to his report; but as secretarv ol the tanners' 



that rotten wood and muck are not good ; that Ihcy ; meeting, and as the ..rgan of their invitation to Dr. Jack- 

 make the soil sour. This is true of them in their acid [ son, we do complain of it ; and for this rcasi.n : if those 



state. But when these I'cids are neutralized, the rotten 

 wood and muck become fertilizers. This neutraliza 

 tirm can bi prod iced slowly by exposing the substances 

 to the action of the atmosphere and soil. Bui it can be 

 more speedily and efTcctually accomplished by mixing 

 them with, or exposing them In, the action of ainmonia- 

 cnl products produced by apjitying lime or ashes to pu- 

 trid urine or dung. (But why -putrid or partintly de- 

 composed ? This we have asked since the meeting, and 

 Dr. Jackson replies, because urine and dung when fresh, 

 will give out, on the application of lime, only a small 

 quantity of ammonia ; but if somewhat putrid when the 

 lime is applied, they give it out ve-y freely.) The 

 great object in the use of lime is, to make ammonia or 

 . muioniacal products ; and this should be done under 

 such circumstances that the ammonia may be absorbed 

 by vegetable matters ; for then the acids in these mat- 

 ters will be neutralized and the matters themselves will 

 b-'come good manures. How shall we do this .-■ 



If you apply lime to dung or urine alone, the ammo- 

 nia will pass off into the atmosfihere and be lost. If 

 you suffer dung to ferment alone, ammonia will be es- 

 caping from it and will be wa-led. But mix your fresh 

 dung and muck well together in a well formed heap; 



who are invited to addres.s us are liable to be rendered 

 ridiculous by great misrepresentation and disrespectful 

 insinuations, we shall be unable to obtain speakers. 



VVe certainly did not hear Dr. J. say that -' he would 

 endeavor to entertain the meeting by stating from recol- 

 lection what be U^A formerly delivered at other irtettings" 

 Bui we did hear him s.ay, m substance, this : that ho 

 sliou'd draw from the stores which memory had laid up 

 durintr the years he hod devoted to agrieutturai ehemis- 

 try. Neither did we hear him say " that no plants would 

 grow so as to mature their seeds, in any mi-xture of pure 

 earths, without imbibing something from theatinospliHre" 

 — but we did hear him maintain (iu oppositi'm to Lie- 

 big's hypothesis,) that most plants cannot obtain from 

 the atmosphere atone carbon enough to enable them to 

 produce Hovversand seeds. This was his point. When 

 the Cultivator says that "the Doctor's remedy" for acid- 

 ity in rotten wood " is 11 ne," we must ask hiin if he re- 

 members correctly the prescripiion. We thought Dr. 

 J. named «/«mo!a'a as the proper medicine ; and lur pro- 

 ducing this he wished not fm lime alone, but lime acting; 

 upon iiuimal matter. The " wonder if he (Dr. J.) could 

 make good manure from white pine, white pine leaves,, 

 or pine sawilust, if he had lime enough," we do not join H 

 in, both because wc have found the muck fiom a pine 

 swamp very good as an ingredient '-f compost manure ; 

 and also because we believe that boiling it in potash 

 would veiy soon convert fine sawdust into very good 

 manure, and believe further that all decayed vegetable 

 matters may be made good manures, whenever by the 

 use of lime and animal matter you cause them to im- 



put a coating of muck on the outside i f the heap ; it is j bibe ammonia enough In neutralize their acids. When 

 a good course to cover the « hole with straw and boards, the speaker " treated learnedly of senic acid, ' we did 

 Let the heap lie in this state several weeks or months; 



Dr. J. recommends forming it in the autumn and b-tting 

 it remain until spring. In tins state the muck will ab- 

 sorb the ammonia given out by the dung in its first sta- 

 ges of decomposition. At the proper lime, 10 or 15 days 

 Lefore you wish to apjdy the compost, take a bushel of 

 unslaked lime to each cord in the heap, apply to it just 

 water enough to reduce it to a powder, and then throw 

 the heap over, mixing the lime in well. The heap may 

 be again coated with muck, for this coating will absorb 

 ammonia in sufficient quantity to make it good manure. 

 Ashes will answer as a substitute for lime, (We did 

 not learn the relative quantity of dung and muck, but 

 we suppose that if the muck has been lor some conside- 

 rable time exposed to the atmosphere, or if from any 

 other cause it dm-s not contain a large quantity of frea 

 acids, that fro ii two to three cords of muck may very 

 safely be used to one cord of-ifung,) Muck when satu- 

 rated with the urine of cattle, if thrown over and treated 

 with lime, bceimies as valuable as dung. 



Farmers often make mistakes in the application of 

 lime as a top dressing. Ifit is nut on in its caustic stale 

 it does but little if any gnod the first year, because it is 

 then imbibing carbonic acid from the atmosphere, and 

 as this acid feeds the foliage of plants, the lime robs 

 them of their food until it becomes saturated. .'Vir-slak- 

 ed lime as a lop dressing answers well as a corrective 

 on acid soils. Lime is most serviceable on soils contain- 

 ing a large quantity of partially df composed organic 

 matter 



.. t liear liiui ; but his remarks iqion crenic acid we at- 

 tended to. His remark thai " rain water in this vicinity '' 

 was charged with erinite of lime," escaped our notice ; 

 but we heard him say that pond water in this vicinity 

 contains crenafc, &c. 



Where Dr. J. was understood " to think the subsoil 

 was not worth much before it bad been manured," wo 

 understood him to say that it would be impioved by stir- 

 ring it with the subsoil plough, and thus submiiting it 

 to increased action from the atmosphere. Another quo- 

 tation — -' As to gypsum, he supposed that some pai i of 

 it might go into tlie plant and compose a part of it, as in 

 ( ase ofclover, &c. ; yet he confessed that gypsum pro- 

 duced no eft'ect on some soils — (il plaster operates prin- 

 cipally by fiirming a component part of the plant, then 

 why should it noi prove useflil on all kinds of soil.^'') — 

 'J"he statement of fact here may be correct, but as the 

 question asked iniimates an inconsistency in Dr. J.'s 

 opinions, we will irv to answer it. Gypsum is supposed 

 to have much the same action as coinmon salt ; conse- 

 quently we cannot expecl to derive benefit from it 

 where there is already salt enough to supply the plant 

 with what it will incorporate inti ilself, as is the case 

 riong the sea coast. On calcareous soils, inland, it is 

 serviceabh . — Once more we quote— "The Doctor still 

 seems to think lime the all important agent in agricul- 

 ture, Ihcuigh he distinclly -tdmits that the excri luent ol 

 animals is useful." Dr, J. speaks itf lime as a mere 

 chemical agent to render comfiosi soluble, and fit it for 

 food to plants; and we distinctly ask if it was not a 

 great object with liim to teach lanuers how they might 

 make a compost thai would be nearly or quite as gooii 

 as duns ? This was an object with him ; and therefore 

 the assertion that " he distinctly admits that the excre- 

 ment of animals is useful," (implying thi I lie sets bui 

 little value upon excrement as a manure,) is false in it: 

 import and an insult to his good common sense. 



VVe intend to maintain our friendly relatii.ns with oui 



