234 



THE GENESEE FARMER 



quadrupeds, and doubtless birds also, to take on fat 

 in summer and autumn, as a kind of protection against 

 the cold of winter, and a partial supply of alimentary 

 and heat-giving elements stored up in the system to 

 be consumed at the season of its greatest need. 

 Hence, every farmer should look closely to his cov.-s, 

 oxen, steel's, calves and heifers ; to his sheep, horses, 

 store hogs, poultry and honey bees ; and see that all 

 are doing well. 



In many parts of our extended country, it is a 

 common error to allow crops of all kinds to remain 

 too long in the field after th(jy are harvested. This 

 remark applies to wheat, rye, oats, hay, seed clover, 

 potatoes and corn. Every crop should be housed or 

 otherwise secured in its season, if possible ; but occa- 

 sionally sickness, or a want of help, prevents one's 

 garnering his crops at the proper time. Few are 

 aware how much valuable produce, of one kind and 

 another, is destroyed and lost by sheer neglect in the 

 field, after it has been grown and cut at no small ex- 

 I>ense. This is the extreme of folly. 



We present this month an illustration of " Virgio," 

 the zodical sign of August. This month received its 

 present name in honor of Octavius Acgl'stus. In 

 the old Roman calendar it was called " Sextilis," the 

 sixth month from March. 



THE STUDY OF SOILS. 



The Country Gentleman of July Gth contains an 

 elaborate article "On the Practical Value of the 

 Analysis of Soils," written by Mr. S. W. Joh.vso.v, 

 who is understood to be engaged in studying chemistry 

 with Baron Leibig, at Munich, at which place his 

 communication is dated. The purport of this paper 

 is to discredit the practical value of soil analyses, and 

 suggest nothing as a scientific substitute. This course 

 is to be deprecated; for it discourages the critical in- 

 vestigation of the sources of fertility, and the causes 

 of infertility, iu soils. It disparages the labors of 

 such chemists as Sir HriipiiREY Davy, Chaptal, 

 Sprengel, Leibig, Mulder, Joh.vston, Way, Tuomp- 

 80N, and many others, who have devoted much time 

 and research to learn the chemical properties of cul- 

 tivated earth. As the Country Gentleman strongly 

 commends the article of Mr. J., we will copy two 

 paragraphs from it, and invite attention to their con- 

 tradiction of each other : 



" Magnus calculates that the average harvest of 

 rape seed and straw, from a 'morgen,' contains 13 

 tbs. of pho?pboric acid. The soil of a morgen taken 

 to the depth of 9 inches, he calculates would weio-h 

 1,944,000 its. 13 lbs. is then 0.00066 per cent, the 

 weight of the soil. Chemical analysis is incapable of 

 deciding as to 0.01 in the case of soils, scarcely as to 

 0.1 per cent. How many crops, and how many 

 pounds of phosphoric acid may be removed from the 

 soil, and chemical analysis never be able to tell the 

 difference ? 



'• Magnus further shows that from a soil in which 

 the closely-agreeing results of three analysts gave 

 0.0073 per cent of phosphoric acid, three crops of 

 rape were gathered, in '46, '47 and '48, the last of 

 which was greater than the first (no manure was 

 iaaed), and the three crops, not including chaff, drew 



from the soil a greater per centage of phosphoi-ic 

 acid, viz., .018 per cent, of the soil, than the soil con- 

 tained according to the three analyses, viz., .0073 per 

 cent Magnus remarks : ' It follows from this, that 

 plants do not need to find in the soil any much greater 

 quantities of a substance than is required to their 

 development' '' 



It will be seen that Mr. Johxson asserts unquali- 

 fiedly in the first paragraph, that " chemical analysis 

 is incapable of deciding as to 0.01 in the case of soils, 

 scarcely as to 0.1 per cent." As a knowledge of 

 decimals is not common among all farmers, and es- 

 pecially with such as went to school before they were 

 studied as much as they now are, we will state the 

 above in Avords : " Chemical analysis is inca2)able of 

 deciding as to one part iu ten thousand in the case of 

 soils, and scarcely one part in a thousand." In the 

 very next paragraph he informs his readers, on the 

 authority of Magnus, that " three analysts gave 

 closely-agreeing results" and only seventy-three parts 

 of phosphoric acid (0.0073 per cent.) in a miUion 

 parts of soil ! It will be seen that these three ana- 

 lysts do what, according to Mr. J., is an impossible 

 thing. They determine the amount of phosphoric 

 acid (the most difficult part of soil analysis) down to 

 so small a fraction as seven and three-tenths parts in 

 one hundred thousand, or seventy-three in a milliou. 

 Mr. Johnson quotes Prof Magnus (high authority) 

 in another place, where he gives only nine parts of 

 phosphoric acid in one hundred thousand, or less than 

 one part in ten thousand. Mr. J. is evidently an 

 inexperienced writer for the press, or he would not 

 thus present his readers with overwhelming evidence 

 to convict him of gross carelessness, or gross igno- 

 rance, as to what " chemical analysis is capable," or 

 "incapable of deciding," iu reference to soils. 



As a practical farmer, we readily admit that the 

 most refined and improved processes of chemical 

 analysis do not give all the information which it iS' 

 very desirable to possess ; nor does medical science 

 give us all the knowledge of diseases which both 

 physicians and the sick may reasonably wish that 

 mankind possessed. No profession can be bettered 

 by underrating its importance; nor improved without 

 patient and laborious cultivation. Mr. Johnson al- 

 ludes to Mr. Mapes in no complimentary terras. 

 Probably Mr. J. does not esteem the shallow quackery 

 of Mr. M. more lightly than we do; but our Munich 

 student should not permit himself to run into the 

 opposite extreme. It is too early to pronounce t-x- 

 cathedra what chemistry, in conjunction with practi- 

 cal agriculture, can do to develop both the real de- 

 fects, and real resources, of common soils. For the 

 last twenty years we have contended that science and 

 practice — the wise culture of the mind and the labor 

 of the hands — should go together. Hence it wad 

 that we spent three winters in Albany to persuade I 

 the Legislature to establish a State Agricultural 

 College. In a Memorial to Congress in favor of a 

 National Agricultural School, written by the editrr 

 of this i^aper, and published at length in the Aj)ri! 

 number of the Southern Cultivator, in 1852, may be 

 found the following remarks: 



" Tour memorialist and othere have labored thirty 

 years to persuade the Legislature of New York to 



