52 TRANSACTIONS. 



promotion of the growth of different plants, as well as the neutral- 

 izing of noxious agencies, requires no small amount of careful observ- 

 ation, experience and skill. The herdsman that should feed his oxen 

 ■with beans, — the shepherd tjiat should fodder his sheep with rye- 

 straw, — or the groom, that should feed his master's favorite horse on 

 swamp-hay and onions, would be laughed to scorn by every body but 

 the cockney. Yet worse blunders than these, are continually made 

 by such as are called farmers. It is just as important, that the 

 farmer and gardener should know how to feed their plants, as their 

 animals. It is no more certain of your Indian corn, if it be only half 

 fed, that you will gather only half a crop, than it is of your cow, if 

 treated thus, that she will yield only half a mess of milk. So of 

 your other crops and animals — they must all be fed with food pre- 

 cisely suited to their wants — such as is best adapted to promote 

 growth and maturity. It would seem, then, if the farmer only knew 

 how, he might prepare his ground here, for producing wheat or any 

 other grain or product, suited to our climate, and, be almost as sure 

 of a bountiful harvest, as of a seed time. 



The combinations of matter that enter into the organization of 

 plants, are almost infinite, though the original elements are few. 

 Chemistry has discovered less than sixty elements in the material 

 world, called simple substances, so named, because incapable of 

 reduction. Of these, only four enter in any considerable degree into 

 the formation of plants, viz.. Carbon, which forms from forty to fifty 

 per cent, by weight of plants cultivated for food ; — Oxygen, forming 

 nearly one-half of the crust of the globe, twenty-one per cent, of the 

 atmosphere, eight of every nine pounds of water, and nearly one-half 

 of the living organisms of plants and animals ; — Hydrogen, the light- 

 est of known substances, constituting one-ninth part of the weight of 

 water, and entering but slightly into the composition of animal and 

 vegetable bodies — and Nitrogen, constituting seventy-nine per 

 cent, of the bulk of the atmosphere, constitutes a part of most animal 

 and vegetable substances. Plants, then, being composed chiefly of 

 carbon, oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen, must be fed with these in 

 due proportion, in order to produce a vigorous growth and an abun- 

 dant harvest in return for the labor, skill and care of the husband- 

 man. The carbon is derived from carbonic acid, the oxygen, from 

 the atmosphere, hydrogen, from the decomposition of water, and nitro- 

 gen, from ammonia, absorbed by water and received by the plants 

 through their rootlets. Earthy particles and salts are always present 



