242 



Papers read at a late Meetivg of the Farmers^ Club. Vol. X. 



Papers read at a late Meeting of the 

 Farmers' Club. 



Professor Liebig has justly attained a 

 high standing' in that part of" human science, 

 which relates directly to the important art 

 of providing food from the culture of the 

 earth. It is desirable that such parts of his 

 work as are plain to ordinary comprehension 

 should be as extensively circulated as possi- 

 ble. The whole work requires previous 

 knowledge in a reader to be duly under- 

 stood. We will make occasional extracts 

 which to us seem best suited to our common 

 farming pursuits. Liebig says : 



"It must be admitted as a principle of ag- 

 riculture, that those substances which have 

 been removed from a soil must be complete- 

 ly restored to it ; but whether this restora- 

 tion be effected by means of excrements, 

 ashes or bones, is in a great measure a mat- 

 ter of indifference. 



"The time will come when plants growing 

 upon a field will be supplied with their ap- 

 propriate manures prepared in chemical 

 manufactories ! When a plant will receive 

 only such substances as actually serve it for 

 food — ^just as at present, a few grains of qui- 

 nine are given to a patient afllicted with 

 fever, instead of the ounce of wood which 

 he was formerly compelled to swallow in 

 addition." 



Artificial Manure by Liebig. — An address 

 to the agriculturists of Great Baitain, ex- 

 plaining the principles and use of his artifi- 

 cial manure, by Professor Justus Liebig. 



In Muspratt & Go's preface it is stated 

 that this eminent chemist has obtained cer- 

 tain compounds, which are of such a nature 

 that different states of moisture in the at- 

 mosphere, in different localities, will not di- 

 minish their efficacy. That he has found 

 means to give to every soluble ingredient of 

 manure by its combinations with others, any 

 degree of solubility without alter, ng its eflect 

 on vegetation. He gives for instance the 

 alkalies in such a state as not to be more 

 soluble than gypsum — the mixture of the 

 manures lias been adapted to the mean 

 quantity of rain in England. The manure 

 which is used in summer has a greater de- 

 gree of solubility than that used in winter. 



Taking the importation of bones for the 

 last ten years at one million of tons, in 

 which phosphoric acid is supplied in suffi- 

 cient quantity for twenty-five million tons 

 of wheat, to have increased the fertility of 

 the fields in the right proportion, eight hun- 

 dred thousand tons of potash ought to have 

 been added to the million tons of bones in a 

 suitable form. 



Experiments of Bouissingault. — For cen- 



turies in Hungary, wheat and tobacco have 

 been cultivated on the same field without 

 any supply of nitrogen. Is it possible that 

 tills nitrogen can have had its origin in the 

 soil ] Our forests of beech, chesnut, oak, 

 are rich in nitrogen. The source of it can 

 only be in the afmosphere. 



From the known quantity of common sta- 

 ble manure which Bouissingault put every 

 five years upon his field — four Hessian acres 

 — he estimated by the chemical analysis of 

 the manure, the total quantity of nitrogen 

 furnished for the rotation of the five years. 

 The result was, on nice examination, that 

 the nitrogen used up by the crops did not 

 come from the atmosphere, and that all the 

 plants got, was from the manure. But some 

 plants do obtain their nitrogen from the at- 

 mosphere, and Bouissingault says they are 

 the leguminous plants. Liebig does not 

 agree to this doctrine. The meadows of 

 Holland for centuries have produced mil- 

 lions of hundreds weight of cheese — all this 

 does not diminish the productiveness of the 

 meadows, although they have never received 

 more nitrogen than they originally contain- 

 ed. Hence we cannot augment the fertility 

 of our fields by manures rich in nitrogen or 

 with ammoniacal salts alone. The crops 

 diminish or increase, in exact proportion to 

 the diminution or increase of the mineral 

 substances conveyed to it in manure. 



With respect to ammonia, the experi- 

 ments of Faraday prove that there is an un- 

 known cause of the formation of ammonia. 

 That as it is known that it is a constituent 

 of air ; that it is present wherever air is 

 found; that it is a coercible gas which is 

 condensed on the surface of solid bodies in 

 much larger proportion than air, and fur- 

 ther, that it exists in distilled water ; these 

 and other still more incomprehensible expe- 

 riments of Faraday are explained in a simple 

 manner. 



For on examination of rain water it was 

 found that out of 77 analyses made of rain 

 water of thunder-storms, 17 contained more 

 or less of nitric acid, partly in combination 

 with lime, and partly wuth ammonia. In 

 the other GO, only two contained traces of 

 nitric acid. But it does not appear from 

 careful analysis made by Bouissingault in 

 South America, where heat and tiiunder- 

 storms are abundant, that more nitric acid 

 exi.-ts in those waters than in the temperate 

 zones, where from eight to ten thunder- 

 storms are an annual average. 



The sun-flower and tobacco, and some 

 other plants contain considerable quantities 

 of nitric, while other plants on the same 

 soil have none. — New York Farmer and 

 Mechanic. 



A 



