ANALYSES OF THE COTTON PLANT AND SEED. 203 



Then a bone mill for crushing, and simple apparatus for their 

 chemical reduction, will be as essential to producing the crop, 

 as a grinding mill is, to prepare grain for the food of man. 



WOOD ASHES, containing phosphates and alkalies, to a 

 considerable extent, where they abound, may be used advan- 

 tageously as a manure for cotton. 



LIME, being useful in decomposing and ameliorating ad- 

 hesive soils, might be profitably employed in the permanent 

 improvement of cotton lands. 



Common potter's clay, diffused through water and added 

 to milk of Lime, thickens immediately upon mixing, and if 

 the mixture be kept for some months, and an acid be added, 

 the clay becomes gelatinous, which is the effect of the admix- 

 ture of the lime. The lime in combining with the elements 

 of the clay liquifies it, and what is more remarkable liberates 

 the greater portion of its alkalies. These interesting facts, so 

 important to the scientific world, were first observed by M. 

 Fuchs, at Munich, and led to the explanation of the effects of 

 caustic lime upon the soil, which furnishes the agriculturist 

 with an invaluable means of opening it, and setting free its 

 alkalies substances so indispensable to the production of his 

 crops. (For further facts concerning lime, and its application 

 to Agriculture, see Liebig's Organic Chemistry, which should 

 be in the hands of every one.) The lime lands of the West 

 producing abundant crops of cotton, so long as furnished with 

 vegetable matter, shows that lime alone, upon exhausted soils, 

 would prove a doubtful aid. 



We could add suggestion after suggestion, relative to the 

 aids to be applied to tho-production of cotton, upon exhausted 

 soils, but these being the most important, we shall dispense 

 with the boundless materials which lie abundantly around us, 

 and only need transporting to our fields in order to benefit 

 them. It was a matter of surprise to Professor Von Liebig, 



