AGRICULTURE WITH CHEMISTRY. 137 



and leaves of vegetables, may be destroyed by alkaline 

 salts and hot lime; ^vhich substances have the power of 

 dissolving the continuity or texture of organic bodies* 

 and are particularly fatal to the soft bodies of living in- 

 6e(5ts. Inse(5ls are likewise to be destroyed by neutral 

 salts, and by saline bituminous substances. The bodies 

 of these inseds, when dissolved by putrefaflion, become, 

 like other animal matters, serviceable to vegetation. 



The vitriolic acid will also a6l in destroying insects and 

 other animal substances, in a manner somewhat similar 

 to alkaline salts, with this difference only, that the one 

 forms an acid, the other an alkaline sapo. 



Vitriolic acid, diluted with a due prof)ortion of water, 

 and superacidulated vitriolic salts, may likewise be used 

 with a double effecl, in the destruftion of inserts, in 

 ground long under cultivation, and which contains much 

 animal and vegetable matter, in the state of phosphat 

 and oxalat of lime. In this case, not only the inse^Sls will 

 be killed, but the vitriolic acid will, by superior afTinity, 

 combine with the calcareous matter of the phosimat and 

 oxalat of lime, whose disengaged acids will form new 



s soluble, 



