ON THE USE OF VARIOUS MANURES. 



A COMMUNICATION READ BEFORE THE ASSOCIATION, DECEMBER, 1845, BY 



R. L. PELL, Esq. 



Of Pelham, Ulster County, New York. 



Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Association: 



Having been requested by several of our members, to state to you my experience in the 

 manufacture and use of manure and cultivation of wheat, I herewith comply. By analysis it 

 has been discovered that all the cereal grains — all cruciferous and leguminous plants — all trees 

 and shrubs, require in the soil certain chemical substances, in different quantities, according to 

 the character of the plant. Those substances are eleven in number, viz. : — Potash, Soda, Lime, 

 Magnesia, Alumina, Oxide of Iron, Oxide of Manganese, Silica, Sulphuric Acid, Phosphoric 

 Acid and Chlorme. If one of these is entirely absent from a soil, it may not grow any of 

 the cultivated plants ; therefore the absolute necessity in the present age of analysis. You might 

 add to your soil several chemicals and still not add the required one. Thus it is that so much 

 valuable land in our State will not grow wheat, when, were the soil analyzed, the farmer might 

 by an addition of perhaps potash, lime, or some other simple substance, make his land produce 

 fine crops of that invaluable grain. The reason that rye and buckwheat will grow after wheat 

 ceases, is that they require less lime and other chemical substances than wheat ; at last you 

 can raise no crop — the five finger vine takes possession of yoiu soil and you consider it 

 worn out and useless ; when, by an expense perhaps of three dollars to the acre, it would 

 produce you thirty bushels of wheat. 



