1836.] 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



95 



liEVIKWS OF NEW WORKS ON CAIXAllEOUS 

 MANURES. 



From Silliman's Journal of Science. 



JSsffay on Calcareous Ttfanures, by Edmund 



RuFFiN. Second Edition. Slicllbanks, Va.. 



1S35. 8vo. pp. 116. 

 On the vse of Lime as a Manure, by M. Puvis, 



translated lor tiie Farmers' Register. Siiell- 



banks, Va., 1835. 



There is no one of the useful arts to which the 

 appiiculion of chemical science may be made of 

 as much importance as to acjriculture. We can- 

 not imleed inquire in the minute and delicate pro 

 cesses by which nature elaborates the inert mat- 

 ters of the soil, and converts tiiem into the living 

 plant; but we can examine that organized vege- 

 table, and find what elements enter into its com- 

 position, and by a similar examination of soils can 

 determine whether they contain the substances 

 from which the plant must obtain its growth, or 

 not. If they do not, the addition which will be 

 efficient in promoting the growth bciuir thus deter- 

 mined, chemical researches will again show the 

 source whence it can be derived in the most eco- 

 nomical manner. So also soils may contain com- 

 pounds which, if the proj^er food of some plants, 

 may be noxious to othf^rs; chemistry will detect 

 these, and point out the means of neutralizing 

 their injurious action. 



Instead then of the decreasing fertility of soils 

 which political economists assume, in o|)pasition 

 to some well known facts, or which the general 

 experience of our own country would seem to de- 

 monstrate, we might infer that good soils could be 

 kept up to their original state, and inlerior soils 

 improved until they became equal to the best: 

 that nothing in fact except climate would op|)oss 

 a limit to the approach of agricultural product to 

 the maximum. 



Such results, however probable in appearance, 

 have been fiir from being attained, or even ap- 

 proached. Agriculturists rarely take the trouble 

 to learn even the elements ot science, and if the 

 direct fi)rce of obvious example occasionally leads 

 to the introduction of new machines and improved 

 processes which are merely mechanical, those 

 which chemical science would indicate are reject- 

 ed as unintelligible and visionary. On the other 

 hand the student of science can rarely or never 

 acquire the practical skill, the knowledge of the 

 mode of performing and directing agricultural la- 

 bor, on which the practical farmer properly prides 

 liimsellj and without which the best theory will 

 lead to no profitable result. 



In the aiiplication of chemistry to the analysis 

 of vegetables, chemists have usually neglected to 

 examine substances of the greatest importance 

 which they know to exist in them, but which they 

 Avere willing to consider as merely adventitious. 

 Thus the person who reads a treatise on general 

 chemistry, may rise from its perusal in the belief 

 that plants contain no other essential elements but 

 carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, with the occasion- 

 al addition of nitrogen; whde a course of actual 

 experiment could show earthy and saline sub- 

 stances, of large amount, wholly neglected in the 

 estimate. Phosphorus too, which forms so large 

 a portion of the mass of those animals whose 

 whole subsistence is derived fi-om the vegetable 



kingdom, is never named* among the elements of 

 vegetables, yet it has on some occasions been de- 

 tected in them, and there can be no doubt that if 

 it were diligently sought it must be f()und in al- 

 most every c.ise. When the gigantic bones of 

 the ele|)hant are known to consist, to so great an 

 extent, of phosphate of lime, it would be vain to 

 deny lliat the phosphorus and calcium e.xist in 

 some slate or other in the herbage he feeds upon, 

 as well as the oxygen which forms the other in- 

 ijredient of the phosphate. So fiir in fiict from 

 those substances which are neglected by chemists 

 being unimportant in the constitution of plants, 

 they must modify the manner in which the other 

 elements combine; and altliough the vital action , 

 does in many cases coiniiel 'hem to enter into 

 combinations in direcit o|)|)osilioii to the ordinary 

 laws of chemical affinity, we may in many in- 

 stances safely attribute the great difierence which 

 exists among compounds, said to he of the same 

 elements, to fhe very matters that are usually re- 

 jected in the examination. 



"It is said that piitrescpnt manures serve for tlie nu- 

 trinipiit of plants. But the same might be also stated 

 in relation to substances which improve the soil, 

 which furnish to it matters necessary to render it fer- 

 tile; which impart to vegetabfes, the earth and saline 

 compounds which enter as essential elements into 

 their composition, texture, and their products. Such 

 improving substances well deserve to be regarded as 

 nutriiive." 



"Thus lime, marl, and all the calcareous compounds 

 employed in agriculture, since they furnish to plants 

 lime and its compounds, wliicli sometimes form half of 

 the fixed principles of vegetabfes, ought also to be 

 considered as aliments, or, which comes to the same, 

 as furnisliing a part of the substance of vegetables. 

 Thus, again, wood ashes, pounded bones, burnt bones, 

 which furnish to vegetables the calcareous and alka- 

 line phosphates which compose a sixth part of the fix- 

 ed principles of the stalks, and three- fourths of their 

 seeds, ought well to be considered, and surely are nu- 

 tritive." 



"What thus particularly marks the distinction be- 

 tween the manures which impiove the soil {amende- 

 inens) and those which are alimentary (engrais) is, 

 tiiat the former furnish, for the greater part, the fixed 

 principles of vegetables, the earths and salts, the latter 

 tiie volatile matters which are abundantly ditfused 

 througfi the atmosph'^re, whence vegetables draw 

 them by suitable organs: and what is more remarka- 

 ble, is, that the vegetable by receiving the fixed prin- 

 ciples of which it has need, acquires as we shall see, 

 a greater enei-gy to gather for its sustenance, the vola- 

 tile principles which the atmosphere contains." — Pu- 



* Probably the author refers to the necessaiy ele- 

 ments of plants, among the adventitious bodies; we 

 believe it is usual to name the bodies which ne has de- 

 signated, e. g. — from a work now lying before us, 

 take the following passage — "Besides the elements 

 above named, that are essential to organized bodies, 

 (carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen,) there are 

 others, which are present in diiferent cases, in greater 

 or less quantity: such are phosphorus, sulphur, chlo- 

 rine, iodine, bromine, potassium, sodium, calcium, 

 silicium, magnesium, iron, manganase, &.c. but gene- 

 rally they are in minute quantities," &c. Silliman's 

 Chemistry, Vol. II. p. 391. Within these remarks, 

 both organic kingdoms are included. — Er. J. of S. 



