THE GENESEE FARMER. 



183 



and in the subjection of steam and electricity to the 

 common uses of man. 



The Legislature of Illinois has done itself honor in 

 passing the resolutions, a copy of which accompanied 

 your letter. It is peculiarly tit and becoming in that 

 honorable body to take the lead in the great effort to 

 educate the classes devoted to agriculture and the 

 useful arts, and thus to make productive labor at- 

 tractive and honorable, by giving to it the strength of 

 knowledge and the dignity of science. For lUinois is 

 destined to become, and that right soon, the first and 

 gi-eatest agricultural State in the Union. Its naviga- 

 ble waters are, I thinlc, unequaled by any inland coun- 

 try in the world; its artificial means of transporta- 

 tion will soon be unsurpassed; its latitude and cli- 

 mate are exactly right for the production of the great 

 staples of commerce; and as for its soil — the whole 

 surface of the State is one unbroken continuity of lux- 

 uriant richness. I have traversed the State in some 

 half a dozen directions, embracing the length of the 

 State from Shawneetowu to Galena, and have never 

 seen within your borders a single township of poor 

 land. 



Never did a young and rising people enjoy greater 

 advantages or brighter prospects, and happy for you 

 and for the whole country will it be, if you bear in 

 mind the unvarying truth, that the blessings of Prov- 

 idence are always associated with correlative duties. 

 Such a country, so excellent by nature, and so im- 

 proved by intelligent labor, calls upon you with the 

 authority of a parent's voice, to put forth your best 

 energies, and not to be weary of well doing, till you 

 have accomplished the noble object of your Legisla- 

 ture, and have scattered in every field the good seed 

 of educated labor and intelligent enterprise which 

 your society were designed to sow. 



May your hearts never faint and your hands never 

 tire till all your good ends are accomplished. 



Most respectfully, Edw. Bates. 



HIGHLAND 



AND AGRICULTURAL 

 SOCIETY. 



Professor Lowe presided. "27ie Recent Pro- 

 gress of Scientific Agriculture." Dr. AxnERsoN, in 

 the course of his address on this subject, after pre- 

 liminary remarks, referred first to our knowledge of 

 soils, and on this department of his sul)ject he thus 

 discussed the researches of Professor Way, on the 

 absorptive power of soils: — 



"It has been long known to chemists that clay pos- 

 sesses, to a very small extent, the power of absorbing 

 and fixing ammonia; but Mr. Way has shown that all 

 fertile soils are capable of absorbing not only that 

 substance, ))ut the alkalies and magnesia. Thus, if a 

 soil be shaken up with water containing a small quan- 

 tity of ammonia or any of its salts in solution, and 

 then left to deposit, the clear fluid drawn from the 

 surface is found to be entirely free of ammonia. This 

 absorption, however, is confined to the ammonia, none 

 of the acid with which it is combined being retained 

 by the soil. Thus, if sulphate of ammonia be em- 

 ployed, the whole of the sulphuric acid is found with 

 the fluid, combined with lime. A true chemical de- 

 composition has here occurred, lime derived from the 

 soil having replaced the ammonia in its compound. 



The extent to which the absorption of these substan- 

 ces takes place is small, and has, as yet, been accu- 

 rately ascertained only with regard to ammonia and 

 potash. It diffei-s greatly according to the nature of 

 the soil, and whether the substance is employed in the 

 pure state or combined with acids. Thus, a loamy 

 soil from Dorsetshire absorbed 0.3921 per cent, of 

 ammonia; a lighter soil from Berkshire took up 

 0.1570, and a subsoil clay from Somerset only 0.0818. 

 In regard to potash, the experiments published by 

 Mr. Way refer only to a sort of pottery clay, which 

 takes up 0.4366 per cent, from the nitrate, and 1.05 

 from a solution of pure caustic potash. Direct ex- 

 periment has shown that this absorptive power is not 

 due to sand; and as it is found to exist in pure po1> 

 ter's clay, brought up from a considerable depth, Mr. 

 Way infers that it does not depend on organic mat- 

 ters, but is entirely due to the clay. In a later paper 

 he has extended his investigations, and starting from 

 the obvious fact that the absorption could not be 

 due to the clay as a whole, but rather to some par- 

 ticular substance existing in it, and possessing a high 

 degree of absorptive power, he has inquired mto the 

 subject in this point of \-iew, and arrived at results of 

 much practical and scientific interest. As it it was 

 manifestly impossible to extract from the clay the 

 supposed substances to which its absorptive power 

 was attributed, he adopted a different mode of inves- 

 tigation. He first proved that felspar, albite, and the 

 other minerals from which the clay of our soils is pro- 

 duced, hive no absorbent effect, and then proceeded 

 to try wdiat could be done by the artificial formation 

 of substances of a similar nature. When silicate of 

 soda is added to a solution of alum, a white powder 

 is formed which is a compound of silicate of alumina 

 and silicate of soda, and this, when treated with a 

 salt of lime, gives a similar compound, containing 

 lime in place of soda. When this substance is mac- 

 erated with a salt of potash or ammonia, it is decom- 

 posed, and there are formed double compounds con- 

 taining these siibstances, and nearly insoluble in wa- 

 ter. The potash compound so formed contains 24 

 per cent, of potash, and that of ammonia contains 

 about 5 per cent. The substances are so little solu- 

 ble in water that a gallon extracts from them only 

 2.27 gi-ains of potash, and little more than one grain 

 of ammonia. The practical inference fi-om these 

 facts is sufficiently obvious; suppose the soil to con- 

 tain the silicate of lime and alumina, and a quantity 

 of sulphate of ammonia to be employed as a manure, 

 we should necessarily have produced the absorptive 

 effect actually observed in practice; sulphate of Hme 

 would be formed, and the ammonia would pass into 

 the sparingly soluble doulde silicate of alumina and 

 ammonia, which would thus become a magazine from 

 which that important element of our crops would be 

 slowly hberated to the extent of a grain for every 

 gallon of water, so as to fulfil the requirements of the 

 i)!ant. The solubility of these compounds is howev- 

 er so small, that in some instances a sufficient quanti- 

 tity of potash and ammonia might not be obtained 

 by the plant were it not that their solubility is re- 

 markably increased by carbonic acid and common 

 salt. Mr. Way found' that a gallon of water satu- 

 rated with carbonic acid gas, dissolved 2.5 gi-ains of 

 I ammonia from its compound, and a solution contain- 



