ASHES. 



ASHES. 



ashes if burnt when green than when they are 

 previously dried. Davy (Lectures, p. 113) has 

 given a table of the quantity of potashes fur- 

 nished by the combustion of various common 

 vegetable substances, which I shall here insert, 

 as the cultivator will see by it that there is a 

 very remarkable difference in the quantity pro- 

 duced by equal weights of different trees and 

 plants, 



Pent Ashes. Peat ashes are made in many 

 parts of England for the use of the farmer by 

 burning peat in large heaps, after it has been 

 sufficiently dried by the heat of the sun ; and 

 for grass lands and turnips they have been 

 found a very valuable manure. They are 

 usually applied as a top dressing. The com- 

 position of peat ashes more nearly resembles 

 that of coal ashes than those from wood or 

 vegetables which is a result hardly to be ex- 

 pected, when we consider that the immense 

 beds of peat, or turf, as it is sometimes called, 

 which are dispersed over Britain, are evidently 

 composed of the remains of vegetable sub- 

 stances ; trunks of trees, leaves, fruits, stringy 

 fibres, the remains of water mosses, &c., and 

 this in some places to a depth of 15 yards. 

 Peat ashes were analyzed by Davy, with much 

 care : he came to the conclusion that they owe 

 most of their fertilizing properties to the pre- 

 sence of gypsum (or sulphate of lime). In 

 the Berkshire and Wiltshire peat ashes, he 

 discovered a considerable portion of it. The 

 Newbury peat ashes he found to be composed 

 of from one-fourth to one-third gypsum, and in 

 the peat ashes of Stockbridge and Hampshire, 

 a still larger proportion of the same substance. 

 The other constituents of peat ashes are cal- 

 careous, aluminous, and silicious earths, with 

 varying quantities of sulphate of potash, a 

 little common salt, and occasionally oxide of 

 iron, especially in the red varieties of peat 

 ashes. 



" These peat ashes," said Davy, " are used 

 as a top dressing for cultivated grasses, particu- 

 larly sainfoin, clover, and rye-grass. I found 

 that they afforded considerable quantities of 

 gypsum, and probably this substance is inti- 

 mately combined as a necessary part of their 

 woody fibre ; if this be allowed, it is easy to 

 explain the reason why it operates in such 

 small quantities ; for the whole of a clover or 

 sainfoin crop on an acre, according to my esti- 

 mation, would afford, by incineration, only 

 three or four bushels of gypsum. In examin- 

 ing the soil in a field near Newbury, which was 

 taken from below a footpath, near the gate, 

 where gypsum could not have been artificially 

 furnished, I could not detect any of this sub- 



* Hence potash was formerly called " salt of worm- 

 wood." 



stance in it, and at the very time I collected 

 the soil, the peat ashes were applied to the 

 clover in the field. I have mentioned certain 

 peats, the ashes of which afford gypsum : but 

 it must not be inferred from this, that all peats 

 agree with them. I have examined various 

 peat ashes from Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and 

 the northern and western parts of England, 

 which contained no quantity that could be 

 useful ; and these ashes abound in silicious, 

 aluminous earths, and in oxide of iron. Lord 

 Charleville found in some Irish peat ashes, 

 sulphate of potash. Vitriolic matter is usually 

 found in peats ; and if the soil or substratum 

 is calcareous, the ultimate result is the produc- 

 tion of gypsum. In general, when a recent 

 potash emits a strong smell resembling that of 

 rotten eggs (sulphuretted hydrogen), when 

 acted upon by vinegar, it will furnish gypsum." 

 (Agric. Chem. p. 336.) 



In the valley of the Kennet, in Berkshire, 

 where the peat ashes are made in very consi- 

 derable quantities, and are used by the farmers 

 as a manure for both grass and turnips, they 

 are sold at three-pence per bushel, and are ap- 

 plied at the rate of 40 or 50 bushels an acre 

 broadcast. On most grass lands there is no 

 dressing equal to them ; and on some soils, 

 near to Hungerford, they produce the most 

 luxuriant crops of grass, in cases where the 

 effects of common farm-yard manure are 

 hardly perceptible. As a manure for turnips, 

 they answer best in wet seasons. In very dry 

 weather, the crops growing on the ashecl land 

 are described by the farmers as putting on a 

 "burned" appearance. 



Peat ashes are extensively employed in 

 Flanders as a manure ; they are carefully pre- 

 served by the householders, who burn turf or 

 peat, and are sold to the farmers by the bushel, 

 in the same way that those of Newbury are in 

 England. Their use is chiefly confined to clo- 

 ver, for which purpose they are an excellent 

 top dressing. Mr. Radcliffe, in his Agriculture 

 of Flanders, has given an analysis of these 

 ashes, from which the farmer will see they owe 

 nearly all their fertilizing properties to the 

 presence of 12 per cent, of gypsum. 100 parts 

 are composed of 



Silicious earth ------ 32 



Sulphate of lime - 12 



Sulphate and muriate of soda - - - i 



Carbonate of lime ----- 40 



Oxide of iron ------ I 



Loss 7 



100 



Paring and burning Ashes. This is hardly 

 the place to enter into the often argued and 

 yet undecided question, as to the advantages 

 of paring and burning. It is pretty universally 

 agreed, that the practice is highly injurious to 

 sandy soils, beneficial to clay lands, and sti . 

 more advantageous to those of a peaty descrip- 

 tion ; that is, to soils where there is an excess of 

 , inert vegetable remains. The cultivator of the 

 i soil will see, by the results of the analysis by 

 ! Davy of the ashes produced by the parmg and 

 ! burning of three different descriptions of soil, 

 the usual products of paring and burning. 20<i 



