FERTILIZERS. 27 



except the potash remaining about the same, while the 

 percentage of lime has been increased. 



These facts seem to explain why leached ashes are 

 sometimes as valuable to the farmers as unleached. Such 

 cases simply prove that it was not potash the crop needed 

 so much as the lime or other ingredients which exist in 

 the leached about equally as strong as in the unleached. 

 In two experiments, tried two years in succession, on corn, 

 the leached, value for value, proved to be worth more 

 than the unleached. In giving value for value, more 

 magnesia, lime, and soda were applied with the leached 

 than with the unleached ; and in these, rather than pot- 

 ash, the soil was probably deficient. Or, the better results 

 may have been caused by the action of the lime and mag- 

 nesia in their releasing elements in the soil, thus making 

 its nitrogen available ; or by their improving its texture. 



Professor Ville says, that though chloride of potassium, 

 sulphate of potassa, and the carbonate are all three soluble 

 in water, and all three are absorbed by the roots of plants, 

 yet chloride of potassium is inactive, the sulphate of po- 

 tassa nearly so, while the carbonate gives the best results. 

 If this is so, then it seems to follow, that potash in ashes 

 is worth more for agricultural use than in the form in 

 which much of it is found in the potash salts of Germany. 



LOGWOOD ASHES. These are made from the wood or 

 wood sawdust after the coloring-matter has been ex- 

 tracted. They contain but a trace of potash (.08), with 

 2.30 of phosphoric acid. I have had them offered at ten 

 cents per bushel. Obviously all their value comes from 

 their phosphoric acid. 



ROTTEN WOOD. As bones exposed a while on the sur- 

 face, part with their nitrogen to the greedy soil ; so wood 

 exposed so long as to be pretty, rotten, appears to part with 

 its potash, for I am told that little or none is found in its 



