154 



THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



[October, 



in the court-yard adjoinina; the Galerie d'Or- 

 leans. The ghost of the Napoleonic era is a 

 very woe-begone one, and Bonapartism, f<yr 

 the moment, seems to exercise less intluence 

 over the minds of the multitude than at any 

 former time during this century. Still, it 

 must be admitted that the second empire, 

 wliile it lasted, did things very liandsomely 

 indeed. Tlie pieces in its repertoires were got 

 up regardless of expenses, and its pourboires 

 were unstinted. 



Disestablished politically, ostracised by the 

 fashionable world, the Palais Royal might os- 

 tensibly run the risk of sinking to tlie level of 

 a tenth-rate neighborhood. It is not only the 

 great eating-house and coffee-house keepers 

 who have quitted it for the boulevards. To a 

 great exent it has suffered abandonment at 

 the bands of cheap tailors, who have dis- 

 covered that a "coin de ruf," or corner of a 

 populous street, is a necessity in carrying on 

 the business of a slop-shop palace on a large 

 scale. There yet remain slop-shops in the 

 Palais Royal ; but they are few in number, 

 and subdued in aspect. Their dummies look 

 dusty, clammily pallid, and generally de- 

 lected, from their obvious inability to cope 

 with the pretentious lay-figures of the "coin 

 de rue" slop palaces ; the boys in Glengarry 

 jackets, knickerbokers, purple hose, and pre- 

 posterously rough faces ; the aristocratic 

 coachmen with buff great-coats reaching down 

 to their feet, wliite neckcloths, bushy black 

 whiskers, and gold-laced hats with monstrous 

 cockades ; the dashing Amazons with Tyrolese 

 hats and golden and coral-handled whiiis, and 

 who never forget to lift a corner of their 

 habits to a sufficient altitude to assure the 

 spectator that they are provided with under- 

 garments of chamois leather, with black 

 feet. The artistic exuberances are beyond 

 the poor old Palais Royal. The Palais 

 Royal, built in deliberate imitation of 

 the Piazza San Marco, and presenting a 

 really noble, albeit imperfect copy, must al- 

 ways bear a pleasantly dim resemblance to its 

 peerless Venetian original. Unfortunately the 

 incurable mania of the French for the over- 

 ornamentation of every monument of archi- 

 tecture which they possess has led to the con- 

 version of the immense area between tlie 

 arcades into a garden. It never was a hand- 

 some garden ; and at present it is more than 

 usually ill-kept, exhibiting a gravelly walk, 

 with a few iiatches of grey-green herbage and 

 scraggy shrubs here and there. Were the 

 whole expanse smoothly paved a Vltali m<t, in 

 a simple but elegant pattern in white and 

 grey, or wliite and i)ink marble, and were the 

 ugly newspaper kiosks, the toy and cake stalls, 

 and the supplementary booth fronting the 

 rotonde, all of which impede the view to an 

 exasperating extent, swept away, the garden 

 of the Palais Royal would assuredly be one of 

 the most niagnilicent spectacles in Europe, 

 especially at night, since the basement of 

 every one of its sections is a shop, or a cafe, 

 scarcely ever closing until after ten o'clock, 

 and necessarily lirilliautly lighted with gas. 

 The majority of the entresals and first floors 

 are again occu])ied by restaurants, and the 

 illumination of these saloons eidiances, to a 

 wonderful degree, the nocturnal brilliance of 

 the scene. We had bad heavy rains yester- 

 day afternoon, but it cleared up at night, and 

 the moon was superb. It was aggravating to 

 have no full and sweeping view of the ar- 

 cades on either side, and the radiant frontage 

 of the Galerie d'Orleans, at the extremity, 

 parallel witli the palace. It was more aggra- 

 vating to find no military band present, as in 

 olden times, to discourse enlivening strains. 



THE COMPARATIVE EXHAUSTIVE 

 POWER OF THE CEREALS.* 



Frienih and Fellow- Laborers : I feel highly 

 honored in being called upon again at our an- 

 nual re-uuion, to address you. I would do 

 violence to my own feelings if I did not sin- 

 cerely thank you for the pleasure it aftbrds me 



*An ;i(idre8s delivered by Prof. S. B. Heigee. of York, Pa.. 

 at the Tri-State Pic-Nic of the Patrous of Husbandry, at 

 Williams' Grove, ThurBday, August 29th, 1878. 



to add my humble mite toward making this im- 

 mense gatheriug alike pleasant and profitable. 



You have assembled at the close of one of 

 the most bountiful harvests to spend a single 

 day socially ; to renew old acquaintanceships 

 and to form new ones, to compare results of 

 old plans and metliods, and to devise better 

 ones ; with thankful hearts, we hope, to enjoy, 

 to appreciate, to acknowledge the lavish gifts 

 of a Power that never tires in giving. None 

 more fully deserves this day of recreation than 

 you and your helpmeets, for from you, and 

 from you alone, spring all the means of sus- 

 tenance upon which all other pursuits and 

 callings primarily depend. 



Withhold the labor of your hands, and the 

 products of your broad acres for but a single 

 year, and all other pursuits would languish. 

 Yet our interests are so nicely interwoven that 

 our success and theirs mutually depend upon 

 each other. Whatever militates against the 

 interest of the consumer falls with e~ciual f')rce 

 upon the jiroducer. This immutable law con- 

 trols, ramifies and permeates all pursuits which 

 engage the time, capital and labor of the 

 human family. 



In order that we may become a more im- 

 portant factor in the execution of this grand 

 law, I have chosen as my theme that which 

 will render your labors more successful, profit- 

 able, intelligible : " The Comparative Ex- 

 haustive Powers of the Cereals." 



IIow strange it is that the most subtle de- 

 ductions of science, in many in.stances, are but 

 the sayings, maxims and proverbs of the most 

 observant. This declaration presents itself 

 with more than usual force when we introduce 

 to your consideration and inspection a full 

 analysis of our subject. 



P'armers for a long time have believed the 

 oats crop to be the most exhaustive of all the 

 cereals generally raised. They have come to 

 this conclusion by noticing the amount of ma- 

 nure applied for the crop of corn immediately 

 preceding the oats, the beneficial effects of 

 which, they rightly conclude, cannot all be re- 

 moved by the corn ; the amount of manure re- 

 quired to produce a good crop of wheat from 

 the oats grcnmd, or the almost total failure if 

 they seed the oats stubble to wheat without the 

 api)lication of manure or some other fertilizer. 

 Here is a single instance in which the habit of 

 clo,se observation, one of the most valuable 

 powers of the human mind, has led the farmer 

 to a great truth which the chemist reaches by 

 an entirely ditterent, yet no more reliable pro- 

 cess. If time would permit we could cite 

 many more, all tending to prove that close 

 comparative observation is a process of truth- 

 ful scientific deduction. But we desire to 

 make our first mentioned observation with 

 reference to the oats crop the basis of our re- 

 marks. We present to your view a somewhat 

 novel analysis of three general cereals : 



NUMBER OF LBK. EXTRACTED 

 PER ACRE. 



PhoBiihoric Acid. 



Nitrogeu 



Potash 



Soda 



Lime 



Magnesia 



Sulphuric Acid. 



Chlorine 



Total 



: g o 



14.2 

 75 

 29.5 

 (118.7) 

 9.5 

 10.1 

 76 

 3.7 

 Trace 



~2r7 



We have departed from the usual plan of 

 the chemist, and have given tlie analysis of a 

 pirojllable crop of wheat, corn and oats re- 

 spectively. We have carefully considered tlie 

 average cost of land per acre, the annual in- 

 terest upon tlie cost of the land, the deteriora- 

 tion offences and buildings annually, the cost 

 of manure or other fertilizers, the cost of cul- 

 tivating, harvesting and preparing for market, 

 etc., and in order that farming may prove 

 profltalile the respective crops should be at 

 least twenty-five bushels of wheat, fifty bushels 

 of corn, and seventy-five bushels of oats per 

 a,j^ie. 



These cereals, tlirough a long term of years 

 of peace, the natural condition of an agricul- 

 tural people, would average, at least, one dol- 

 lar per bushel for the wheat, fifty cents per 

 bushel for the corn, and thirty-three and one- 

 third cents per bushel for the oats. This would 

 produce a crop worth twenty-five dollars per 

 acre from each of the several cereals. We 

 shall charge each of the crops, together with 

 the necessary amount of straw and fodder to 

 carry them, with the chemical elements ex- 

 tracted from the soil in their production, and 

 conclude, from a scientific standpoint, if farm- 

 ers are right in declaring oats to be the severest 

 of the general cereals upon their soil. Of 

 nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash, the 

 three substances most easily extracted from the 

 soil, the twenty-five bushels of wheat will 

 take 48.6 pounds per acre, the fifty bushels of 

 corn will take 74.4 pounds per acre, and the 

 seventy-five bushels of oats will take 118.7 

 pounds per acre. 



Calling the exhaustive power of the wheat, 

 (48.6 pounds) one, the exhaustive power of 

 corn and oats would respectively approximate 

 one and a half and two and a half times as 

 much. That is, of these three most easily re- 

 moved substances, oats takes two and a half 

 times as much as wheat. 



Let us now consider soda, lime, magnesia, 

 sulphuric acid and chlorine, the other sub- 

 stances required to produce these respective 

 crops. Tliey, with the nitrogen, phosphoric 

 acid and potash, aggregate in the twenty-five 

 bushels of wheat, 53.9 pounds ; in the fifty 

 bushels of corn, 81.1 pounds; in the seventy- 

 five bushels of oats, 217 pounds. Calling the 

 entire exhaustion of the wheat (.53.9 pounds) 

 one, the exhaustive power of corn and oats 

 would respectively approximate one and a 

 half and four times as much. 



Whether we consider the three substances 

 most easily extracted from the soil, or all those 

 that constitute wheat, corn and oats, the fact 

 stares us in the face, that a crop of oats of 

 equal value per acre is from two and a half to 

 four times as exhaustive as a crop of wheat. 



How closely do declarations based upon 

 careful observation conform to the searching 

 deductions of science ! The analysis that we 

 have here presented may .serve another purpose 

 besides deciding upon the comparative exhaus- 

 tive powers of the crops that we have consid- 

 ered — it may lead us to inquire concerning the 

 origin of these various .substances — the sources 

 from which they may be most readily and 

 cheaply obtained, and the most profitable man- 

 ner of applying them. 



All fertilizers may be divided into two 

 classes : Those which actually supply food to 

 the plant, and tliose which convert foreign sub- 

 stances into food. The four great organic ele- 

 ments, tliose that largely make up the bulk of 

 animals and [ilaiits, are carbon, oxygen, hy- 

 drogen and nitrogen. 



Nature has bountifully provided the soil 

 with the first three, both as soil and atmos- 

 pheric food, and man need but provide most 

 soils with the fourth, nitrogen, as a fertilizer. 



Of the mineral elements entering largely 

 into the constitution of most plants, nine in 

 number, iron and silica are always found in 

 sufiicient quantities in a soluble condition. 



While nitrogen constitutes four-fifths of the 

 atmosphere, but a comparatively small portion 

 is furnished from that source. It would be 

 contrary to "the eternal fitness" of nature to 

 extract it from the atmosphere and eventually 

 render it unfit for everytliing that breathes. 

 The air is possessed of a fixity, whether it be 

 examined resting on plains covered with most 

 luxuriant verdure, or on tracts of cursed 

 sterility. Nitrogen is always absorbed by the 

 soil, and consumed by the plant in the form of 

 ammonia, or of nitric acid combined with a 

 base. 



Nitrogen, in the form of ammonia, is most 

 rai)id in its action and most powerful in its 

 effects ; in tlie organic form of vegetable or 

 animal albuminoids, it is rapidly converted 

 into ammonia whilst undergoing putrefaction, 

 and in the form of nitrates (nitric acid com- 

 bined with a base, potash or soda, for instance,) 



