10 



GENESEE FARMER. 



Jan. 



it is not insuperable. In the end, it must yield 

 obedience to a higher power. This higher pow- 

 er must be brought to full and perfect maturity 

 in the person of every laboring man and woman 

 in the United States. Rural and mechanical 

 laborers of either sex should be more thoroughly 

 educated than those that live without work. — 

 Idle, lazy persons, have no share in our regards 

 or sympathy. We want every laboring man to 

 know how to set himself at work to the best ad- 

 vantage ; and then, how to keep all that his mus- 

 cles and highly cultivated intellect shall call into 

 e.xistence. The science of keeping property as 

 well as the art of creating a comfortable subsist- 

 ence, should be taught to every child. Why not 1 

 Yes, to/iy not? We pause for a reply. 



Manure fermenting in the Soil. 



Our correspondent "R.," of Sweden, has a 

 valuable article in our last number in regard to 

 the Saving and Application of Manure. He 

 "believes that manures lose half their value by 

 lying in the heap till thoroughly decomposed." 

 In this he is undoubtedly right, for reasons which 

 we will briefly explain : 



Vegetables, when undergoing decomposition, 

 (rotting,) give off a gas called carbonic acid, wa- 

 ter, and nitrogen gas or ammonia. Each of 

 these constituents of cultivated plants is not mere- 

 ly valuable as food to the growing crop, be it 

 what it may, but they all contribute to the im- 

 provement of the soil in a variety of ways. To 

 avoid the too rapid solution of lime. Providence 

 has rendered it insoluble when in its natural state, 

 in water in which there is no carbonic acid.- 

 The atmosphere contains only 1 part of this gas 

 in 2,500. Rain water imbibes a portion of car- 

 bonic acid in its fall from the clouds to the earth, 

 and is thus capable of dissolving a limited quan- 

 tity of common limestone in the soil. When 

 water, thus charged with this indispensable min- 

 ei'al, enters the roots of plants, it carries into 

 their circulation the much needed lime, in small 

 and appropriate doses. Where lime is lacking, 

 it should be applied. During dry weather, when 

 of course no rain falls, this source of carbonic 

 acid and moisture is measurably cut off. If fer- 

 menting manure be buried in the soil, its decom- 

 position yields water and carbonic acid as well as 

 ammonia and the min'erals in the vegetables out 

 of which the manure was formed. Water rising 

 up from the subsoil by the evaporation from 

 green leaves, and the drying of the surface of 

 the ground, through capillary attraction, is satu- 

 rated with carbonic acid from the manure, and 

 hence prepared to dissolve lime. This acid 

 greatly aids in decomposing the insoluble sili- 

 cates of potash, soda, magnesia, and lime — form- 

 ing soluble carbonates of those alkaline bases. — 

 These minerals, as is well known, are indispen- 

 sable in the organization of all cultivated plants. 



If Providence had rendered the elements in 

 the surface of the earth which form vegetables, 

 very soluble, like common salt, it is plain that 

 they would dissolve like snow in May, and run 

 into rivers and the ocean. This would lead to 

 speedy and irredeemable sterility. The more 

 carefully we study the growth of the plants which 

 feed the higher order of animals, the more deep- 

 ly are we impressed with the infinite wisdom and 

 goodness of the Creator of the world which we 

 inhabit. Cultivated reason has power to investi- 

 gate and comprehend the natural laws which dis- 

 organize the products of vegetable vitality, and 

 re-organize the earth, air, and water, evolved by 

 the decay of organic matter. At the time such 

 decay is in progress, if the gasses given off find 

 a well tilled, permeable soil, they will increase 

 the solubility of all the minerals which form the 

 ash of forest trees, and of all minor vegetables. 

 Mold undergoing decomposition, produces in a 

 less degree the same results as manure. Hence, 

 deep plowing and mixing mold (organic matter) 

 with the minerals below, favors their solution, 

 secures the access of solar heat and the atmos- 

 phere, to prepare nourishment for the crops of 

 the skilful husbandman. 



On soils which are naturally poor the farmer's 

 stock of fermenting manure can be profitably in- 

 creased by gathering a large quantity of forest 

 leaves to be used as litter in yards and stables. — 

 The most successful agriculturists at the South 

 keep boys at work with horse rakes in the open 

 pine or oak forests, raking up into winrows the 

 large mass of leaves spread over the ground. — 

 Other boys or men throw these winrows into 

 carts drawn by mules, and the leaves are hauled 

 to stables and cattle yards to be made into com- 

 post. The writer finds that the long leaf pine 

 gives 4i lbs. ash to 100 lbs. dry leaves. The 

 leaves of black-jack oak yield on the barrens of 

 Georgia less than 3 per cent, of ash. We have 

 traced the roots of these trees seven feet into the 

 earth, and have admired the wonderful resources 

 of Nature as she draws thousands of tons of pot- 

 ash, soda, lime, iron, and magnesia, comibned 

 with sulphuric, phosphoric, hydrochloric, silicie. 

 and carbonic acids — the minerals in the leaves 

 of forest trees — from seven feet below the sur- 

 face, to spread them on the top of the ground 

 and thus renovate poor soils. These salts are 

 combined in pine leaves with 95i per cent, of 

 organized carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and nitro- 

 gen, drawn either directly or indirectly from the 

 atmosphere. Here, then, we witness the hand 

 of Providence scattering the seeds of pines over 

 the sterile debris of granitic rocks, almost drift- 

 ing sand, which extract their mineral food from 

 five to ten feet below the surface, and their car- 

 bon, water, and nitrogen from the air. The 

 nitrogen exists in the atmosphere in the shape of 

 ammonia and nitrous or nitric acid dissolved in 

 vapor, and falling in rains to the earth. Keep- 



