THE GENESEE FAEMER 



307 



Thus no more valuable manure can be used than 

 ashes. In speaking of their virtues for a particular 

 crop, one writer says: "The use of wood ashes, when 

 applied on a warm, light loam, will repay the first 

 year three times their cost, in raising a crop of pars- 

 nips." Another says: "No farmer or gardener, who 

 rightly appreciates the value of his own interests, 

 will ever dispose of his unleached ashes at less than 

 seventy-Jive cents per bushel. Whatever may be the 

 geological formation or constitutional texture of his 

 farm, it is scarcely in the limits of probability but 

 there are sections or ' spots,' at least, on which the 

 application of ashes, either as a top-dressing or in 

 compost, would not be highly salutary to the soil 

 and beneficial to the crop." 



And still another says, that by actual experiment 

 he has " found that for every bushel of ashes he has 

 applied to his corn crop for the la«t ten years, he has 

 received an additional bushel of corn as the result !" 



So save your ashes and apply them to your lands. 

 — Granite Farmer. 



ACTION OF DROUTH ON PLANTS. 



The specific action of drouth on plants is one of 

 the problems not yet entirely solved. Whether it is 

 tlie indirect waste of moisture on the plants by evapo- 

 ration, or the want of the due proportion of water 

 necessary to build up the structure of plaifts, or 

 whether it is some indirect action on the constitutions 

 of the soil, is by no means a settled question. 



Tlip present season has afforded abundant illustra- 

 tions of the effect of want of moisture on the several 

 plants the farmer has to cultivate ; and what is more 

 remarkable, the drouth, though aljsolutely 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 particu- 

 larly, the grass crop is peculiarly affected. The finer 

 and shorter grasses are absolutely either wanting, or 

 so thin that they show the meadow to be without 

 bottom grass. The coarser gras'^es 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 spiry in its 

 character. There have been no tillering — no thick, 

 matted surface. The drills have been visible up to 

 the present period ; and the stems are fast running 

 to the ear before half the usual height is attained, 

 being also hard and yellow in color, and different as 

 possible from the graceful flopping blade the wheat 

 plant exhibits at this period. 



Now, in what specific way has this drouth so acted 

 on the plant? In ordinary vegetables, ninety per 

 cent, of their whole structure is simply water. Hence 

 it is easy to conceive how large a quantity of that 

 material is necessary during their growth and de- 

 velopment. But there was no such absolute defi- 

 ciency this season. The soil always contained a 

 comparatively large amount of moisture ; the dews 

 were often plentiful, amounting to fully as much more 

 as any diurnal development of the 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 corresponding months of last year. Hence it 

 seems we must look to the abstract cause of the 



injury — to somewhat beyond the mere denuding of 

 the plant of water, as such. 



We think the theory of Liebig far better estab- 

 lished 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 required by the plant, both in 

 the soil and in the rocks from which the soil is con- 

 tinually forming, by disintegrading 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 ? Simply be- 

 cause the incessant rains of the autumn and early 

 winter had washed the soluble constituents of the 

 soil, so as to leave less free material in the land by 

 far than in the previous spring, and hence the ordi- 

 nary drouth had much greater eSect on the plants 

 this year than it had last. 



The eSect of water on plants, regularly supplied, 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 owing to the plentiful supply of water in the 

 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. Kexxedt, 

 of MyremUl, keeps close upon a thousand head of 

 stock on ninety acres of ItaUan rye grass. In ordi- 

 nary seasons, from five to nine sheep can be kept on 

 one acre of laud; the latter may be done in a drop- 

 ping season on clover, and 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. Kexxedy 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 plants. Hence he is independent of the seas(ju. 

 The water-drill, to which we before alluded, is an ap- 

 plication of the same piinciple ; and the wonderful 

 results of the dressing of dissolved bone liquid, in a 

 dry season, by the Duke of Richmond, is a powerful 

 fact in the same dkection. 



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 

 drouth. The very highly-manured land has sustained 

 the least damage; while on land to which very highly- 

 soluble manures, Peruvian guano, for instance, and 

 similar materials, have been applied, the crops are 

 growing vigorously. 



Nor let it be forgotten that the rain brings down 

 the ammonia, which, in dry states of the atmosphere, 

 will float undisturbed; and this failing, as well as the 

 soluble supply below, would of course aggravate the 

 cause of injury. — Mark Lane Express^ 



The Columbus Journal says that all the flour sold 

 in that city falls short in weight from four to fourtcCB 

 pounds in each barreh l^Zour-ishing rascality I 



