410 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Sept, 



found fish inclined to take the hook, as blue fish, 

 hy trailing; late years they take the hook as 

 soon as it is thrown into the water, and a vessel 

 needs but a few houjs for a full supply, if they 

 will "bite." Now it would seem that the water 

 may be full of them, and not one can be taken 

 out by the hook. At the present lime in Prov- 

 in elo wn harbor none are taken by the hook, 

 while the whole harbor is crowded full of them. 

 The introduction of nets has been a great gain 

 in the way of taking them, and it is predicted by 

 some that mackerel will soon be taken upon this 

 coast only by nets. 



For the New England Farmer. 

 THE PROGRESSION OF PRIMARIES. 

 ANALYSIS OF SOIL AND FERTILIZERS. 

 HY JUDGE FRENCH. 



Whether the first egg was created before the 

 first bird, or whether the first bird laid the first 

 egg, is not settled, perhaps, either by reason or 

 by revelation. Whether man was created up- 

 right in form, at the first, or, according to the 

 idea of the author of "The Vestiges of Creation," 

 was originally a ver)' low kind of a worm, and 

 gradually crawled up through millions of suc- 

 cessive generations of fishes, repiiles, birds and 

 quadrupeds, to the dignity of the human, does 

 not immediately concern us, as agriculturists. 

 We all believe in progress, and that nature usu- 



ces, which can be ascertained by chemical analy- 

 sis. To form this plant, the soil must supply a 

 proportion of these elements. Phosphate of lime 

 makes a great part of the ashes of wheat, for 

 instance, and therefore if the soil has not this 

 phosphate, it must be added, so that the wheat 

 plant may find, and appropriate it. Phosphate 

 of lime is found in bones of animals. It is also 

 found in the rocks at Dover, New Jersey, at Crown 

 Point, and other localities. The chemist analy- 

 zes the bones and the lime rock, and they seem 

 to all his tests, identical. They are applied to 

 the soil, and the animal phosphate wonderfully 

 nourishes the plant, while the mineral phosphate 

 produces very little eff'ect. Potash from wood 

 is a powerful fertilizer for many plants. Felspar, 

 one of the constituents of granite, contains sev- 

 enteen per cent, of potash, but pulverize it as we 

 may, it produces no such effect upon plants, as 

 potash from vegetable sources. 



Manifestly, there are more things in nature 

 than are dreamed of in your philosophy. The 

 plant knows more than the chemist ! There are 

 differences which the chemist cannot detect. 



And now we are coming to the learned words 

 at the head of our article. 



All substances in nature are said to be com- 

 posed of sixty-four simples, which we first, or 

 primarily, find in rocks. The theory then is, that 

 these rocks, in the lapse of ages, have been bro- 



ally walks onward to higher and higher results 



Hearing a geologist once reasoning learnedly jj^en and worn away, and from their debris, soils 

 that this continent had once been submerged, jh^ve been formed. Next, we find those same 

 from the fact. that marine shells are found on thejgyjjstances in vegetables, and finally, in animals ; 



tops of the highest mountains, we suggested, 

 somewhat maliciously, that it was as easy for the 

 Creator to make mountains with shells on their 

 tops, as otherwise! "Yes," said he, "He might 

 have done it, but He did not .'" 



Probably everybody agrees with the geologist, 

 that ^'.hen oi'der came out of chaos, the earth 

 gradually took form, and that whatever of crea- 

 tive energy was employed in calling into life the 

 various living creatures which inhabit it, for the 

 most part, changes everywhere are wrought 



the same, so far as the chemist knows ; but 

 changed or progressed, as the plants plainly tell 

 us. Even the microscope, which shows us eels, 

 and even sea serpents, in Cochituate water, and 

 rhinoceri on the surface of figs ; which can de- 

 tect at a glance, the different kinds of blood, and 

 aZmo*^ discern the oxygen in the atmosphere, can 

 see no difference between these two kinds of 

 phosphates. But the plants, with their instincts, 

 sharper than man's reason, and more subtle than 

 chemists' tests, decide that for their food, the one 



through the operation of fixed laws, and that lis far better than the other. Why is this so? 



every little shell of the seashore is composed of 

 matter in a condition somewhat diflFerent from 

 that in which it before existed. It was before 

 part of a rock ; it has advanced to be part of an 

 animal. It is chiefly lime now, as it was before; 

 but lime of somewhat different properties. For 

 some reason, we generally believe, that oyster 

 shell lime possesses properties for agricultural 

 pu: poses which are not found in the lime rock. 



But our mention of the shell has leJd us in ad- 

 vance of our argument. Let us return. A few 

 years ago, all the world was talking of soil anal- 

 ysis. The theory was beautifully simple. Thus, 

 plants are composed of certain known substan- 



Professor Mapes, of New York, has been for 

 several years discoursing upon this topic through 

 the Worlciiui Farmer, and before the New York 

 Farmers' Club. His theory is, that the elements, 

 which we may find apparently identical in the 

 rock, and in both the vegetable and animal mat- 

 ter, are first taken up by the lower orders of 

 plants like mosses and lichens, that they have 

 thus progressed one step, and that on the decay 

 of those lower plants, those same elements may 

 now be suited to the constitution of plants of a 

 higher order, and so on, till passing gradually 

 upward, they form part of the food of animals, 

 including man. and thus become a constituent 



