Vol. XIV. 



ROCHESTER, N. Y., JANUARY, 1863. 



No. L 



THE FARM AS A MANUFACTORY. 



There are some fourteen different substances which enter into the composition of plants 

 and which must exist in an available form in the soil or the atmosphere surrounding it, 

 before any crop can be obtained. A knowledge of the source, nature, and properties ot 

 these various substances, cannot but be interesting and useful to every inquiring 

 agriculturist. Yet it is in looking at the farm as a manufactory of human food, and these 

 fourteen substances as the raw material employed, that we can hope to arrive at correct 

 notions of farm economy, or adopt any judicious system of rotation and general farm 

 management. 



Taking this view of the matter, we find that while every one of these fourteen 

 elements enter into the composition of all our crops, yet, that they enter into them in 

 very different proportions, and also that the quantity of them in the soil is very 

 variable. Thus, in some soils we get more than a thousand times as much silica or 

 alumina as of potash and phosphoric acid. Sulphur and lime are in many cases equally 

 proportionally scarce. We have, therefore, not only to look at the amount of substances 

 in the plant, but also at the quantity of these raw materials at command in the soil ; 

 and, what is still more important, the kind and quantity of substances necessarily 

 removed from the farm in grain and animals raised from the soil. We cannot expect 

 to treat such a subject satisfactorily in a single article and shall therefore continue it in 

 subsequent numbers of the Farmer. 



Of the fourteen elements which compose our commonly cultivated plants, ten are 

 called inorganic or mineral elements, and are left in the form of ashes when the plants 

 are^ burnt; the other four are termed organic elements, and are, in their natural unor- 

 ganized state, gases. These four elements form from 84 to 98 per cent, of the dry 

 substance of all our crops, and are dissipated by the burning process ; the change from 

 a solid to a gaseous form, eliminating both heat and light, as is well known to all. 

 The form in which these various elements enter the plant, is not by any means well 

 understood ; it is true we have many very plausible theories on the subject, but what is 

 really known — demonstrated by inductive philosophy — is very little. The four 

 organic elements, it is generally admitted, enter the plant as carbonic acid and ammonia, 

 the former containing carbon and oxygen, the latter nitrogen and hydrogen ; so that 

 carbonate of ammonia (smelling salts) contains all the organic elements of plants. It 

 is well known that plants take up all their food in solution, and it has been ascertained 

 by careful experiment that for every pound of organic elements organized in the plant, 

 or, we will say, for every pound of carbonate of ammonia taken up by the plant, 200 

 lbs. of water are imbibed and evaporated through the leaves, &c.; and for every pound 

 of the mineral elements organized, 2000 lbs, of water are imbibed. In this large 



