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NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Nov. 



INDECOMPOSABLE ELEMENTS. 



So far as regards that particular portion of the 

 soil which successfully resists the decomposition 

 and the action of fire, the elaborate experiments 

 of Dc Saussure and Scliroeder demonstrate, that 

 it exerts a merely nominal influence over the de- 

 velopment and perfection of the vegetable sys- 

 tem ; and that, in fact, it merely contributes to 

 it by furnishing a necessary principle to the me- 

 chanical medium which is requisite to secure a 

 firm position or hold upon the soil, and affording 

 a depository or sort of chemical laboratory for 

 the preparation of the food which ensures to 

 them sustenance and life. 



All vegetables, of whatever character, size or 

 development — from the most worthless to the 

 most valuable — from the most insignificant and 

 minute to the most majestic — derive the aliment 

 requisite for their systems from humus, or the 

 decomposing substances of animals and plants. 

 Nov/ if the crops produced by the^ soil of a cer- 

 tain field be regularly harvested and conveyed 

 away, it is certain that such a course will, in a 

 few years, tend to impoverish that soil. Evqry 

 crop abstracts a certain specific amount of ali- 

 mentary matter which it formerly contained, and 

 which must be kept up in order to secure good 

 and remunerating crops, as the soil possesses no 

 recuperating powers, and as no vegetable can 

 generate a single element of which it is composed. 

 That all vegetables, and more especially the ciil- 

 mif'era, or broad-leaved tribe of plants, do actu- 

 ally imbibe a certain definite portion of their pab- 

 ulum from the atmosphere, is a point in relation 

 to which there has long since ceased to be any 

 dispute ; but with reference to a greatly prepon- 

 derating majority of our most valuable staple 

 productions, this supply is inadequate to the sus- 

 tenance of crops, and in most instances would be 

 found too limited even to sustain life. As a 

 general axiom, therefore, the perfection and vol- 

 ume of a crop may be regarded as depending up- 

 on the amount of succulent properties and nu- 

 tritive juices extant in the soil. The humus, 

 which is the product of decomposition, or the 

 visible result of putrefaction, is the only known 

 source of these "succulent properties" and "nu- 

 tritive juices," and can be supplied in no other 

 known way than by the application of those sub- 

 stances — in the form of manures— which are di- 

 rectly derived from the vegetable kingdom.^ 



In applying lime, it is well known that there 

 must be in the soil some organic substance for it 

 to feed or act upon, in order to render its action 

 perceptible, for though it may neutralize certain 

 noxious acids (which it converts into manure) 

 and effect a kindly modification of the physical 

 texture of the soil, it can nv^er supply the place 

 of putrescent manure, nor furnish the aliment of 



plants where no decomposable animal or vegeta- 

 ble matter exists. To render lands fertile, we 

 must supply the elements which compose the or- 

 ganized structure of the plant or plants we are 

 desirous of producing. 



It is plain, therefore, of how much importance 

 is the muck or humus, of our extensive and ac- 

 cessible swamps, especially when it has been 

 mingled with the droppings of stock, and has ar- 

 rested their liquids and gases. We cannot well 

 refrain from again urging its importance upon 

 our people, as the true source from whence to 

 fertilize and once more make glad their impov- 

 erished and almost barren fields. 



CONSTIPATION. 



Tliere is no single word in Webster's Una- 

 bridged Dictionary, from aam to zythum inclu- 

 sive, which, to our mind is so expressive of hu- 

 man misery and physiological depravity as this. 

 It is mainly because our bowels are constipated 

 that the people of these United States support 

 twenty-five thousand drug-shops and forty-five 

 thousand doctors at an annual expense of more 

 than a hundred millions of dollars. And it is 

 because of this that our people pay the quacks 

 of the irregular trade several millions a year. 



But the loss of the money expended in at- 

 tempts to make the bowels ,of the community 

 move, and in endeavors to obviate the conse- 

 quences of their obstruction, is an insignificant 

 evil compared with the loss of health and happi- 

 ness and life. The mischiefs which spring from 

 constipation, as the parent source, are as numer-' 

 ous in the vital domain as are the sins which, in ,, 

 the moral world, originate from the evil one him- 

 self. If Satan is the father of lies, constipation, 

 is the mother of infirmities. 



Where, in all this broad land, is there a man, 

 woman or child whose bowels move naturally, 

 who never requires artificial aids ? There are a 

 few such. And they are those who know almost 

 nothing of sickness. They are strangers to dys- 

 pepsia, rheumatism, toothache, bronchitis, con- 

 sumption. They never have the cholera. They 

 are proof against yellow fever. They are secure ; 

 from paralysis. They never die of apoplexy. Or- 

 ganic affections of the heart never trouble them. 



Constipation of the bowels causes foul blood 

 and morbid secretions. These occasion corrupt 

 humors, w^hich induce torpid livers, congested 

 kidneys, oppressed lungs, and congested brains. 

 Then follow rheumatic pains, headache, palpita-/ 

 tion of the heart, vertigo, sinking spells, nervous 

 debility, lumbago, sciatica, spinal irritation, piles, 

 spasms, colics, and, as more remote consequences 

 still, putrid fevers, pestilential epidemics, malig- 

 nant erysipelas, carbuncles and cancers. And 

 the medicines which are given to cure these con- 

 sequences are worse than the diseases which they 

 cure. 



Learned physicians look for the causes of these 

 prevalent maladies in the vicissitudes of the 

 weather ; in thermometrical variations ; in baro- 

 metrical states ; in prevailing winds ; in fogs ; in 

 storms from the east; in currents from the ,- 

 south; in ^rnadoes from the west; in blasts,. 



