No. 151.] 499 



And one writer estimates, 



Indian Corn, at - - 1.50 



Buckwheat, -- 1.40 



Millet, 1.20 



Rice, only -- - .80 



Now I feel entirely confident that our Indian corn, in nutritive 

 qualities, far exceeds in value for fattening stock even wheat. Can 

 you tell me where I can find an analysis of this favorite grain ? If 

 it has not been made, the American Institute ought to have this 

 question determined, of what per cent, of nutritive matter is found 

 in three or four most common kinds of Indian corn. 



I am glad to find that you intend to let us know the salts found in 

 white ash and red ash anthracite coal. 



I am taking out 1,000 loads of black muck, say half peat — 

 Part I mixed with wood ashes. 

 Part with anthracite ashes, 

 Part with unslaked lime, 

 Part do do and wood ashes, 



Part with soda ash. 

 Part with lime and salt 



I will let you know which does best; any or either will I am sure 

 do well. 



Professor Mapes — Mr. Colt assumes the popular error relative to 

 azote. Liebig is said to have maintained that azote is an element 

 of vegetable nutrition. This is not so. There is no nutrition in it. 

 The only nutritives are starch and sugar. In the proportions of the 

 gases constituting them, there is but a small difference in the quanti- 

 ty of the oxygen and hydrogen between the starch and the sugar. 

 Starch contains no water of crystallization; sugar does. Distillers 

 mix corn (sea maize) and rye in the mash-tub. By stirring, the rye 

 sooner yields its starch and sugar than the corn, and thus the swill 

 is found to contain nutriment for animals. But if they, the corn and 

 rye, were separately distilled, the swill would not sustain an animal, 

 for it would be destitute of both starch and sugar. Starch, when 

 roasted, forms the British gum used in manufacture of cloth of cot- 

 ton, &c. In fermentation, when slow, the oxygen, hydrogen, and 

 carbon of starch, in that form, or in that of sugar, which it assumes, 



