Vol. 8. 



ROCHESTER, N. Y. — JUNE, 1847. 



No. 6. 



THE GENESEE FARMER : 



Issued the first of each month, in Rochester, N. Y. , //y 



D. D. T. MOORE, PROPRIETOR. 

 DANIEL LEE, EDITOR. 



p. BARBY, Conductor of the Horticultural Dopartmenl. 



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Study tlic Soli. 



There are many substances in all good soils 

 which every farmer ought to study till he fully 

 understands their nature and properties. First 

 among these is the abundant mineral called silica, 

 or pure flint sand. This earth has many inter- 

 esting and important properties. It is usually 

 from ten to fifteen times more abundant in all 

 soils than any other mineral. After the organi 

 zed matter is removed from a soil by burning it 

 at a red heat, it is not uncommon to find nine- 

 tenths of the earth that remains, nothing but pure 

 silica ; the other tenth being alumina, iron, lime, 

 magnesia, soda, potash, manganese, and carbon- 

 ic, sulphuric, phosphoric, and hydrochloric acids. 

 Pure siliceous sand is also an acid, having 52 

 parts of oxygen united to 48 of a metallic base 

 called silicium or silicon. When ground down 

 to an impalpable powder, (as some of it is in all 

 soils,) silica is sparingly soluble in water. If 

 the water be warm like a summer shower, and 

 especially if it contain a little potash or soda, or 

 both in solution, silica dissolves easier and more 

 abundantly. The quantity of dissolved flint that 

 finds its way through the roots of wheat, corn, 

 Vioiothy, and otlicr plants, into their stems, is ' of this mineral 



much larger than most grain and grass-growers 

 are aware of. Wheat straw usually contains 

 about 67 per cent, of this mineral in its ash. 



The most interesting practical question in re- 

 gard to silica or flint sand is the fact that, the al- 

 kalies potash or soda seem to be indispensable to 

 convert it into an available food for the growth 

 of plants. These alkalies exist more or less in 

 the ashes or earthy portion of all plants. Being 

 extremely soluble in sandy, pervious soils, they 

 are apt to be leached out by tillage, and the land 

 is rendered sterile, unless often laid down to 

 grass, and renovated by the application of wood 

 ashes, salt, gypsum, and lime, or their equiva- 

 lents in stable manure. 



Alumina is the next most abundant mineral 

 usually found in all soils. Unlike silica, it has 

 alkaline properties. Like potash, soda, lime, and 

 magnesia, it is the oxide of a metal, i. e. a metal 

 combined chemically with oxygen. The metal 

 is called aluminum, of which there is about 53 

 parts to 47 oxygen in pure alumina. This earth 

 combines chemically with theacid silicaand forms 

 the pure porcelain clay, from which translucent 

 china ware is manufactured. Alum is a com- 

 pound salt formed by the union of sulphuric aoi<4 

 (oil of vitriol) with alumina and potash. Alumi- 

 na does not enter plants, and form a necessary- 

 constituent in their organization. Only traces 

 of it have been found in their ashes. It exex"- 

 cises an important office, however, in all fertile 

 soils by increasing their capacity to absorb and 

 retain moisture and nutritive gasses about the 

 roots of vegetables. A soil that contained no alu- 

 mina would be radically defective. It gives ad- 

 hesiveness and plasticity to all clays. Without it, 

 the valuable salts of potash, soda, lime, iron, &c. 

 would remain but a short titne in the surface soil, 

 and within the reach of plants. Phosphoric acid 

 is often combined with alumina. Throwing the. 

 organic matter out of the account, and the eighty- 

 or ninety specimens of soil analyzed in the lab- 

 oratory of the writer within the last year, ha?6 

 contained on average from four to seven per cent. 



