1853. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



403 



ACTION or DROUGHT ON PLANTS. 



The article below whic'n we take from the 

 Mark Lane Expres.'!,{&n excellent agricultural and 

 miscellaneous paper published in London,) could 

 scarcely be more " applicable to this meridian, 

 if written expressly for it. It will come to us 

 with peculiar force.now, when nearly all our crops 

 are suffering from a want of rain. We commend 

 it to each of our readers, as affording a plausible 

 theory wht/ plants require so much water. It also 

 affords strong arguments in favor of irrigation, 

 especially in a climate like ours, where the three 

 summer months are usually very dry and hot. 



The specific action of drought on plants is one 

 of the problems not yet entirely solved. Wheth 

 er it is the indirect waste of moisture on the 

 plants by evaporation, or the want of fcl'.e due 

 proportion of water necessary to build up the 

 structure of plants, or whether it is some indirect 

 action on the constituents of the soil, is by no 

 means a settled question. 



The present season has afforded abundant illus- 

 trations of the effect of want of moisture on the 

 several plants the farmer has to cultivate ; and 

 what is more remarkable, the drought, though 

 absolutely less than it was last year, seems to 

 have had a far greater effect on the plants. The 

 meadows especially appear to have suffered. In 

 all the northern counties particularly, the grass 

 crop is peculiarly affected. The finer and shorter 

 grasses are absolutely either wanting, or so thin 

 that they show the meadows to be without bot- 

 tom grass. The coarser grasses are tall, but 

 thin, and running to seed, forming no tillering 

 stalks, and few blades in comparison to those of 

 former years. The corn is the same — thin, 

 stunted, and soiry in its character. There has 

 been no tillering — no thick matted surface. The 

 drills have been visible up to the present period, 

 and the steius ai-e fast running to ear before half 

 the usual height is attained, being also hard and 

 yellow in color, and as different as possible from 

 the graceful flopping blade the wheat plant usually 

 exhibits at this period. 



Now, in what specific way has this drought so 

 acted on the plants^ In ordinary vegetables 90 

 per cent of their whole structure is simply water. 

 Hence it is easy to conceive how large a quantity 

 of th;it ta icerial is necessary during their growth 

 and development. But there was no such abso- 

 lute deficiency this season. The soil always con- 

 tained a Ci)iQp:iratively large amount of moisture: 

 the dews were often plentiful, amounting to fully 

 as much more as any diurnal development of tlie 

 plant could require, and all the tables of rain 

 fallen in the spring of this year, we have seen, 

 showed a larger quantity than in the correspond- 

 ing months of last year. Hence it seems we must 

 look to the abstract cause of the injury — to some- 

 what beyond the mere denuding of the plant of 

 water, as such. 



We think the theory of Liebig far better 

 established this season. The plant, to take up 

 its elements, must have them presented to it in a 

 state of solution. The action of rain operates to 

 dissolve regularly and gradually the material re- 

 quired by the plant, both in the soil and4n the 

 rocks from which the soil continually forming, by 



disintegrating the small particles existing in the 

 land. These are being supplied to the plant by 

 the rains as it requires them, but this year 

 they have not been so washed out and made 

 ready for its use. But why did not the same 

 cause operate equally in the spring of 1852 T 

 Simply because the incessant rains of the autumn 

 and early winter had washed out the soluble con- 

 stituents of the soil, so as to leave less free ma- 

 terial in the land by far than in the previous 

 spring, and hence the ordinary drought had much 

 greater effect on the plants this year than it had 

 hist. 



The effect of water on plants, regularly sup- 

 plied, is most wonderful. Those who have seen 

 the Clipston water meadows, and the small and 

 clear stream, which produce from three to five 

 crops of grass per annum, either depastured or 

 mown, or partly the one and partly the other, 

 must be convinced that it is almost as much ow- 

 ing to the plentiful supply of water in a dry 

 season, as to any great amount of manure held 

 by that small river in solution, that the vast 

 increase of grass is produced. By watering, Mr. 

 Kennedy, of Myremill, keeps close upon a thous- 

 and head of stock on 90 acres of Italian rye-grass. 

 In ordinary seasons, from five to nine sheep can 

 be kept on one acre of land ; the latter may be 

 done in a dropping season, on clover lays, on 

 well-cultivated land ; but with the aid of a little 

 artificial food and by the application of liquid 

 manure, in the shower form, by steam, Mr. Ken- 

 nedy can keep fifty-six sheep per acre ! Nor can 

 we believe that this is altogether due to the 

 manure. To that it is partly owing, doubtless ; 

 but it is by far more owing to its being watered 

 with that manure in a soluble state, and so fit for 

 the immediate use of the plants. Hence he is 

 independent of season. The water-drill, to which 

 we before alluded, is an application of the same 

 principle ; and the wonderful results of the dres- 

 sing of dissolved bone liquid, in a dry season, by 

 the Duke of Richmond, is a powerful fact in the 

 same direction. 



That it is the want of soluble manure, or, in 

 other words, elements of plants, which is mainly 

 the cause of the injury, is manifest from the fact 

 that all the poorest land has suffered by far the 

 most from the drought. The very highly manur- 

 ed land has sustained the least damage ; while 

 on land to which very highly soluble manures, 

 Peruvian guano, for instance, and similiar materi- 

 als, have been applied, the crops are growing vig- 

 orously. 



Nor let it be forgotten that the rain brings 

 down the ammonia, which, in dry states of the 

 atmosphere, will float undisturbed ; and this fail- 

 ing, as well as the soluble supply below, would of 

 course aggravate the cause of injury. 



But what can now be done, with the meadows 

 ripe, and not one-half or one-third of a crop? 

 We say, free your pastures at once, and put in 

 the whole of the stock, if rain has come, and eat 

 up the meadows thoroughly bare. This will amply 

 relieve the pastures, and aff>rd them the chauce 

 of an entire new growth. The meadows, with 

 their small produce, will soon be eaten up; and 

 let a dressing of two or three cwt. of the best 

 guano be then applied to them, and a beautiful 

 new crop, and not very late, will yet be secured, 

 the mowing machine and haymaker will soon get 



