NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



31 



is doubly beneficial to the human race, and to the 

 herds and flocks subsisting^ upon its surface; first, 

 by absorbing all these pestilential effluvia; and sec- 

 ond, by turning- them to the best account in her lab- 

 oratory. In consequence of the addition of these, 

 she gives increased luxuriance to vegetable, and ful- 

 ler development and maturity to the seeds and crops 

 that contribute to the support of innumerable races 

 of animated creation. By the aid of these, she is 

 enabled to lend a more unsullied white to the lily, 

 and to add a deeper blush to the rose; and from them, 

 too, she stores within the petals and calyx of every 

 flower, the nectar that feeds the bee, the humming 

 bird, and a countless throng besides. When, thei-e- 

 fore, Abraham said to the sons of Heth, "give me 

 a possession of a burying place, that I may bury my 

 dead out of my sight;" and again, when the Israel- 

 ites were required to carry a paddle when going 

 without the camp, they acted only in accordance 

 with the very best practices of modern agriculture. 



But the earths pos.sess this property in very dif- 

 ferent degrees. Silicious sands and gravels, have 

 only the slightest hold upon foreign matter; while 

 clays, and clayey loams seize upon them, almost 

 with the avidity of charcoal, or animal black, and 

 retain them with a still firmer hold, when they have 

 once entered into a chemical union. If, however, 

 alkaline substances, as lime, magnesia, soda, or 

 ashes be added to the silicious earths, or if they be- 

 come enriched by the addition of vegetable manures, 

 tlieir absorbing capacity is immediately and largely 

 augmented. This is one of those beneficial results, 

 always necessarily attached to good husbandry, 

 which is fully exemplified, in the vantage ground, 

 voluntarily conceded by his lord, in the gift of an 

 additional pound, to the thrifty servant, whose "one 

 pound has gained ten pounds." The soil that is 

 in the best condition as to fertility and tilth, is in 

 the very best possible state, also, to draw in and re- 

 tain the floating elementsof fertility, existing in the 

 atmosphere. 



To show some of the striking effects of the prop- 

 erties in soils, above alluded to, we subjoin some of 

 the experiments and remarlcs of Professor Way on 

 this subject. lie passed through a filtering jar con- 

 tiining more than 9 inches depth of fine white sand, 

 a quantity of cow's urine taken from a tank in the 

 country. The liquid was so far altered by the fil- 

 teration that the turbidity was removed, as it would 

 be by filtration through paper, but the color and dis- 

 gusting smell remained in all its intensity. Sand, 

 therefore, obviously was not the active ingredient 

 in soils in respect to the power under discussion. 

 The other great ingredient of soils was clay, and to 

 this x\Ir. Way attributed the power in question. 

 As an experiment, compai-ative with the last, he 

 would pass tlie same tank water through sand, mixed 

 with one fourth of its weight of white clay, in pow- 

 der, and they would observe the result was very 

 striking. The liquid coming through was clear 

 and free from smell; indeed, it was hardly to be 

 distinguished by its external characteristics from 

 "Ordinary water. There could be no doubt, then, 

 that the property of soils to remove coloring matter, 

 and organic matter yielding smell from solution, 

 was due to the clay contained in them. Filtration 

 was only a method of exposing the liquid in the 

 most perfect form to the action of the clay, but il 

 was not necessary to the success of the process. In 

 proof of this, Mr. Way stirred up aquantity of soil 

 with putrid human urine, the smell of which was 



entirely destroyed by the mixture, and upon the 

 subsidence of the earth the liquid was left clear 

 and colorless. It appeared, therefore, that the clay 

 of soils had the property of separating certain ani- 

 mal and vegetable ingredients fr< m solution, but 

 was this property the only one exhibited? Mr. Way 

 had found that soils had the power of stopping, al- 

 so, the alkalies, ammonia, potash, soda, magnesia, 

 &c. If a quantity of ammonia, highly pungent to 

 the smell, was thrown upon a filter of soil, or clay 

 made permeable by sand, the water first coming 

 away was absolutely free from ammonia. Such was 

 the case also with the caustic or carbonated alka- 

 lies, potash, or soda. A power, he remarked, is 

 here found to reside in soils, by virtue of which not 

 only is rain unable to wash out of them those so- 

 luble ingredients forming a necessary condition of 

 vegetation, but even those compounds, when intro- 

 duced artificially by manure, are laid hold of and 

 fixed in the soils, to the absolute preclusion of any 

 loss either by rain or evaporation. 



But he had found that this property of clay did 

 not apply only to the alkalies and their carbonates, 

 but to all the salts of these bases with whatever acid 

 they were combined. Here again was a beautiful 

 provision; sulphate of ammonia, when filtered 

 through a soil, left its ammonia behind, but the sul- 

 phuric acid was found in the filtered liquid — not, 

 however, in the free state, but combined with lime, 

 thus sulphate of lime was produced, and brought 

 away in the water. In the same way muriate of 

 ammonia left its ammonia with the soil, its acid 

 coming through in combination with lime, as mu- 

 riate of that base. The same was true of all the 

 salts of the different alkalies, so far as he had yet 

 tried them. Thus lime, in the economy of nature, 

 was destined to one other great office besides those 

 which had already been found for it — it was the 

 means by which the salts ministering to vegetation 

 became localised and distributed though the soil, 

 and retained there until they are required for vege- 

 tation. It was necessary that when the alkali of a 

 salt is laid hold of by a soil, .some provision should 

 exist for the neutralisation of the acid with which 

 it was combined; for all other sorts, lime performed 

 this usual office, but it had nothing to fall back up- 

 on for its own salts. Sulphate, muriate, or nitrate 

 of lime, when passed through a soil, would come 

 through unchanged. This, however, did not ex- 

 tend to lime, itself, nor to its carbonate, when dis- 

 solved in carbonic acid, as it is found in most wa- 

 ters. Quicklime, when dis.solved in water, is re- 

 moved by passing the water through most soils con- 

 taining clay; and carbonate of lime, in solution, is 

 so effectually removed that hard water may be soft- 

 ened by the same process. 



It was not to be supposed that we could go on 

 filtering indefinitely with the separation of the salts 

 contained in the liquid. On the contrary, the lim- 

 it was soon reached; and although small in per- 

 centage quantity, the power was in reference to 

 the soil enormously great. He had found that a 

 pure clay would absorb, perhaps, two-tenths per 

 cent, of its weight of ammonia — that is to say, 1,000 

 grains would separate 2 grains of ammonia; and 

 from re:isons which need not then be noticed, a loam, 

 or a well-cultivated clay soil would absorb nearly 

 twice as much. Now every inch in depth of soil 

 over an acre of ground weighed about 100 tons, 

 and would be adequate to combine with and retain 

 2 tons of ammonia, a quantity which would be fur- 



