83 



GENESEE FARMER. 



April. 



vegetable matter. They seize upon the ele- 

 ments in the soils, which form their pabulum or 

 support. The economy is beautiful ; the opera- 

 tion is admirable ; the result most beneficent to 

 the vegetable and animal kingdoms. C. D. 



REMARKS ON THE ABOVK. 



Ouu esteemed correspondent gives to the expression, 

 " water in a solid form," a more limited, and precise defini- 

 tion than we are in the habit of doing, when writing for the 

 unlearned who constitute a large majority of our readers ; 

 and as a mark of respect for whom, wc aim to avoid as 

 much as possible the use of scientific terms of Greek origin, 

 like the words oxygen and Iv/drogen. However water or its 

 elements, in connection with carbon, may be transformed 

 into wood, starch, sugar, oil, gum, and other vegetable stib- 

 atanoes, we think it not amiss to say that such water is in a 

 " solid form,'' so long as water furnishes about one-half of 

 the solid matter in all plants. 



"C D." asks : " Who can believe that 97 per cent., or 

 even 90 per cent, of vegetables is derived from the atmos- 

 phere ? So long as manures produce their accustomed ef- 

 fects, is this possible ?" 



These queries raise the most important question that ex- 

 ists, either in the practice, or the science of rural economy. 

 U is one, to the investigation of which we have bestowed 

 .some time, and not a little thought. Although pressed for 

 room in this number of the Farmer, we must take it, so far 

 iis shall be necessary to explain our views, in a concise man- 

 ner, on the great question : '• From wliat sources do plants 

 derive their carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen, or 

 their organised elements ?" 



If wc take 100 lbs. of perfectly dry, unbolted wheat flour, 

 and carefully burn it to ashes, we shall have less than 2^ 

 lbs. of incombustible mineral matter. 97^ lbs. of the flour 

 will have been converted into vapor and gas, and dissipated 

 far and wide through the atmosphere. 



Combustion is only one process among many, by which 

 nature transforms all organised substances, whether vegeta- 

 ble or animal, into air and vapor. Every body knovvs that, 

 when plants and animals die, they decompose on the face 

 "f the earth, and while rotting, give off" into the surrounding 

 atmosphere, most offensive efibuia or gases, which, in some 

 sections, like the rich alluvial bottoms at the West, are suf- 

 ficient to render whole counties quite unhealthy. Do not 

 the droppings — the dung and urine of all animals — fall on 

 the surface of the ground and throw into the air, naturally, 

 no inconsiderable portion of their carbonic acid find ammo- 

 nia? The carbon in the carbonic acid expelled from the 

 lungs of each human being on the globe, in three days, will 

 weigh a pound, on a fair average, taking old and young to- 

 gether. This will give daily to the atmosphere, from this 

 source alone, some 300,090,000 lbs. of carbon from the daily 

 food of man. The ceaseless respiration of all other animals 

 will discharge into the same immense reservoir, at least ten 

 limes as much carbonic acid. Fermentation, however, fur- 

 nishes infinitely more of the gaseous elements of plants than 

 rho respiration of animals. Volcanoes and gaseous foun- 

 tains discharge a vast amount of carbonic acid and nitrogen 

 derived from the dccomposiiiou of organic remains, both 

 vegetable and animal, by heat — these remains being more 

 •r less diffused throtigh stratified rocks some thousands of 

 feet in thickness. We will not allude lo the quantity of 

 carbonic acid, associated with lime and magnesia in the 

 earth, and liable at all times to be expelled into the air by 

 internal heat, however generated. 



Vegetables are the only known agents employed by Prov- 

 idence to purify the air wc breathe, by consuming all these 

 noxious gases. In what way do they perform tliis great ser- 

 vice — this wonilerful double favor for all that eat, as well as 

 all that breathe ? For no animal, not even the lowest in the 

 scale of created beings, can live on the elements of another 

 animal, when disorganised into carbonic acid and ammonia. 

 Pliints alone have the power to re-organize the simple ele- 

 ments of water .iml air into nourishment for animals. How 

 IS this done ? An immense amount of water is evaporated 

 from the surface of the ocean and the earth, as well as from 

 lakes and rivers. This Ijipiid is endowed by Infinite Wis- 

 dom with the 'povier oi seizing in the atmosphere, and bring- 

 ing with it down to the earth, in a liarmless firm, all the 

 gases given off by eombuslion, respiration, fermentation, 

 and the rotting of all vegetable and animal substances.— 

 Rain water, armed with carbonic acid, lo aid in dissolving 



carbonate lime and magnesia, iron and the silicates of pot- 

 ash and soda, together with the phosphates, sulphates, and 

 chlorides of lliese bases — minerals which plants must have — 

 enters the roots of vegetables and ascends to their leaves. 

 There the blessed light and heat of the sun, in a way un- 

 known, transform carbonic acid, water, and ammonia, into 

 woody fibre, starch, oil, sugar, gum, gluten, albumen, and 

 other vegetable products. The green portion of the stems 

 of plants, as is witnessed in the Cactus family, can also 

 change carbon, ammonia, and the elements of water, into 

 organized tissues. Nor are the roots the only portion of 

 vegetables through which carbonic acid, water, and the 

 gases that water holds in solution, enter. The pores in the 

 leaves of plants not only permit the escape, by evaporation, 

 of large quanlilics of water, taken up by their roots, but 

 they at times imbibe moisture and carbonic acid directly 

 from the atmosphere. What portion of the food of any giv- 

 en plant taken from the air, enters it through its leaves, and 

 what by its roots, is a question of no practical importance. 

 It is, however, a question of the highest moment to ascer- 

 tain how much of the substance of the soil is really con- 

 sumed in producing 40 bushels of wheat on an acre. It is 

 all important to learn, if we can, what portion of such a 

 crop is made up of ingredients taken from Nature's grand 

 store-house of vegetable food — the Atmosphere. 



After a long course of investigation, extending through 

 many years, which would fdl a volume if fully written out, 

 we venture the opinion that, in forming 2,000 lbs. of seed 

 wheat, nature does not use more than 200 lbs. (10 per cent.) 

 of solid matter, taken from the substance of the earth. Over 

 40 bushels of wheat have been grown in Scotland on an atr-e 

 of land that had only one-half of one per cent, of organic 

 matter in the surface soil. But wo will not argue this point 

 from facts, however unquestioned, collected from extreme 

 cases. We are willing to concede that, a fair wheat soil 

 should have five per cent, of organic matter, capable, on de- 

 composition, of yielding carbon and nitrogen to wheat plants. 

 We will go farther and admit that, this organic matter is, on 

 an average, twice as soluble as the mineral ingredients that 

 go to make wheat. Now, take 100 lbs. of this soil and pour 

 over it rain water which has been boiled, till you have dis- 

 solved out 100 drachms of earthy matter. Fix the carbonic 

 acid and ammonia as you expel them from the solution by 

 heat, and weigh them. Evaporate to dryness the salts and 

 organic matter not volatilised, which the water has dissolved. 

 Dry thoroughly at 250 ° F. — weigh, and then burn in a pla- 

 tina crucible. . Weigh the residuum. If the loss by com- 

 bustion, and the v.eight of the carbonic acid and ammonia 

 expelled by heating the solution after the soil was washed 

 or leached, make 10 per cent., then your soil will come up 

 to an average of good wheat land, to wit, it will yield to 

 rain water nine parts of the salts of lime, magnesia, potash, 

 and silica, &c., to one of the organic elements of wheat. 



Let us now suppose that a wheat field has a fair supply 

 in due proportions, of all the mineral elements necessary to 

 make 2000 lbs. of seed on each acre ; and that it has five per 

 cent, of vegetable mold, which is twice as soluble as the oth- 

 er portion of the soil. And here let us suggest that, if th» 

 solid organic elements on the surface of the earth were very 

 soluble, like snow and salt, they would all dissolve in a sin- 

 gle season, and leave the soil without a particle of organ- 

 ized matter. There is great wisdom displayed by the Con- 

 triver of all things, in rendering vegetable mold so insoluble. 

 With five per cent, in the soil, and that twice as rapidly 

 consumed liy decomposition as the mineral elements, who 

 does not see that vegetable mold will bo much sooner ex- 

 hausted, than any other resource for supplying cultivated 

 plants with food ? 



Let us now suppose that nature is about to form 2000 lbs. 

 of wheat, w hose 1052 lbs. of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and 

 nitrogen, or their carbon and nitrogen alone, are to come 

 from vegetable mold. We have shown that, to get 10 lbs. 

 from that source exclusively, the plants must take up into 

 their circulaling vessels, in the same water or sap, 90 lbs. 

 of earthy ingredients I To convey to the embryo seeds of 

 wheat 1000 lbs. of carbon, drawn from the solid smbsfcince 

 of the soil, more than 10,000 lbs. of dissolved minerals must 

 go up to the same destination, although in forming the ker- 

 nels of wheat nature can use only 48 pounds of these miner- 

 als I Striking as arc these statements, the truth of which 

 can not be g.iinsayed, they are only one horn, and that the 

 smaller one, of the dilemma, upon which many men of learn 

 ing and science have fallen. 



Take 100 pounds of a good wheat soil having .'J per cent, 

 of common vegetable mold, and we ask, how much organ- 



