CHEMISTRY OP SOILS. 



11 



cold and wetness, but such ill treatment is never wise 

 nor profitable. Man himself has the physical power 

 to sustain great privations. This fact does not, how- 

 ever, justify the deliberate infliction of any sufferings 

 upon him. During the storms of winter, poor brutes 

 often suffer badly from cruel neglect 



]Iunianity and self-interest co-operate in prompting 

 us to take excellent care of all live stock in cold 

 weather. They should be regularly fed, if fed at all; 

 for regularity in the daily consumption of food ren- 

 ders it twice as serviceable as it would be if con- 

 sumed at very unequal intervals, and in unlike quan- 

 tities. The colder the weather, or rather, the colder 

 the atmosphere that surrounds animals, the more for- 

 age they need, and the richer it should be in soluble 

 carbon and hydrogen in an excess of the combined 

 oxygen. For if carbon already has so much oxygen 

 combined with it that it will not burn, or if hydro- 

 gen be in a similar condition, then neither can add 

 any warmth to the cooling body of a domestic animal. 

 All such aliment is as worthless as a gallon of pure 

 vinegai- poured into the stomach of a poor, freezing 

 ox to warm him, and make healthy blood. Oil cake 

 and corn meal are the true types of the kind of ali- 

 ment needed by stock in winter. The reason why 

 carbon and hydrogen in the form of oil in seeds, as 

 in maize, flaxseed, &c., is worth nearly two and a half 

 times more as aliment than carbon and hydrogen in 

 the form of starch or sugar, is because one is fitted 

 to evolve heat in the animal economy, and the 

 other is not. Hence, it is a great improvement 

 to cooked potatoes or rice to be eaten by persons, 

 both of which are exceedingly rich in starch, to add 

 an ounce of butter to eight of this farinaceous ali- 

 ment Plants rich in sugar, like beets, and maize 

 before its seeds are formed, and many other grasses, 

 are highly nutritive and calorific, as winter feed for 

 neat stock. To form healthy blood and a plenty of 

 it in winter, the food of domestic animals should be 

 at once sufficiently soluble in the organs of digestion, 

 aad abound in both heat-generating and muscle-form- 

 ing coustituenta Such food yields the best blood 

 and the cheapest possible meat, milk and wool 



CHEMISTBY OF SOUS. 



The chemistry of soils is a subject of great im- 

 portance to the practical agriculturist, and which 

 more than almost any other at the present time, de- 

 mands a careful and laborious investigation. 



Though there are may things in the phenomena 

 of vegetation, the sources of the nutrition of plants. 



and the dependence of all upon unknown atmospheric 

 influences, which, as yet, are beyond our knowledge 

 and clear comprehension, yet enough has already 

 been discovered by science to afford the intelligent 

 farmer material aid in his labor, and stimulate him to 

 observe with care and attention the various phe- 

 nomena presented to his view. It has been ascer- 

 tained that certain ingredients are present in every 

 fertile soil, the absence of any one of which, or its 

 isomeric equivalent, diminishes the yield of harvest. 

 When we analyse the ash of different species of 

 plants, we find various elements present in various 

 proportions, and the same elements are constant in the 

 same plant Without these elements the seed can- 

 not be ripened or the plant attain its perfect develope- 

 ment and growth. For example, we find in all cereal 

 or grain crops that phosphorus or its compounds is 

 present in the ash; and in every soil where these 

 crops are grown in perfection, we also find that a 

 compound of phosphorus is present 



How little of the elements of a fertile soiHs suffi- 

 cient for the complete growth of the different organs 

 of a plant, we do not know, and upon this point we 

 need exact experiments. We know what ingredients 

 are present in fertile soils — in what proportion they 

 must be combined, we know not. 



Submitting the ashes of the most opposite kinds 

 of plants to analysis, we present the followmg sub- 

 stances: 



Acids. 



MttaUic Oiida. 



Carlionic Acid, 

 Silicic Acid, (Silica), 

 PboBphoric Acid, 

 Sulphuric Acid, 

 Nitric Acid. 



Magnesia, 



Alumina, 



Ses-qui oxide of iron, 



Oxide Manganese. 



Also, chloride of sodium or common salt, chloride 

 of potassium; and in marine plants, iodide of sodium 

 and iodide of magnesium. What office these various 

 acids and oxides perform in the nutrition and growth 

 of plants, we do not know, and perhaps may never 

 know; but we do know that for any given crop, if 

 the elements of its ashes are wanting in the soil, we 

 need nst hope for seed in harvest With these ele- 

 ments present every plant may be regarded as a 

 laboratory or factory, engaged in the solution and 

 suitable arrangement of materials from without. No 

 one of these materials can be produced by the plant, 

 consequently they come from without. If then these 

 materials are not at hand, the plant withers and dies, 

 precisely as a lamp goes out when the supjily of oil 

 is exhausted. An interesting illustration is afibrded by 

 the cultivation and growth of the sugar cane. From 

 an analysis made by Dr. Stekdoose, and published 



