AND GARDENER'S JOURNAL. 



PUBLISHED RY JOSEPH BREGK & CO., NO. 52, NORTH MARKET STREET, (AcRieuLTUBiL Wafehodse.)— T. G. FESSENDKN, EDITOR. 



vol,. XV. 



BOSTON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 14, 18S6. 



NO. 23. 



^■S3aS<SW3L1?l?2S;^S.a 



ON THE USE OF LIME AS MANURE. 



BY M. PUVIS. 

 f Continued.') 

 ABSORPTION OF PLANTS IN VEGETATION ON CULTI- 

 VATED SOILS. 



Saussurt, in establishing that plants do not take 

 in the soil more than a twentieth of their sub- 

 stance, in extract of inould and in carbonic acid, 

 lias necessarily established, by the same means, 

 that almost the vvliole amount of fixed principles 

 do not proceed from the soil. 



Braconnothas analyzed lichens, which contain- 

 ed iTiore than half their weight of oxalate of lime, 

 and he has observed others covered with crusts of 

 carbonate of lime when there was none of this 

 earth in the neighborhood. 



Shrader, in burning plants grown in substan- 

 ces which did not contain any earthly principle, 

 has found in their ashes, earths and salts which 

 were neither in the seeds sown, nor in the pulver- 

 ized matters in which the plants grew. 



Lastly — the analyses of Saussure, though show- 

 ing more of the carbonate of lime in the ashes of 

 plants which grew on calcareous soils than on 

 soils not calcareous, yet, nevertheless, they have 

 formed more than a sixth of the ashes from vege- 

 tables on silicious soils — and Einhoff has found 

 65 per cent, of lime in the ashes of pines gro\'.ii 

 tin silicious soil. The labors of science then con- 

 firm what we have afeove established, that |)lants, 

 or the soil, form salts and earths. [Van Hel- 

 mont's experiment, cited first in the list above, 

 like M. Puvis' reasoning in general, furnishes am- 

 ple proof that most of the volatile parts of vegeta- 

 bles, and the greater part of their bulk, are drawn 

 from the atmosphere — and they are equally de- 

 fective in proving that earths and other fixed prin- 

 ciples are thence derived, or are formed by the 

 power of vegetable life. Distilled .vater is not en- 

 tirely free from earthy matter, and if it had been 

 used for watering the willow, it would in five 

 years have given some considerable part of the five 

 |)Ounds of solid matter in the ashes. But as we 

 are not told that it was either distilled or rain wa- 

 ter, it may he inferred that the comparatively im- 

 pure water of a fountain or stream, was used for 

 watering the jilant, and which would more than 

 sufiice in so long a time to convey the whole in- 

 crease of earthy and saline matter. The experi- 

 ments of Lainpadius and Shrader are liable to the 

 same objection — and the former to this in addi- 

 vtion — that his earths were deemed absolutely 

 pure, when, in all probability, they were not so — 

 and that a very slight adinixture of other kinds 

 with each, would furnish the minute quantity that 

 a small plant could take up during its short and 

 feeble existence, under the circumstances stated. 

 The results stated of the experiments of Bracon- 

 uot, Saussure and Einhoff, may be, and probably 

 are, entirely correct — but they are fully explain- 

 ed by the doctrine of neatral soils, and need no 



support from, and give none to, our author's doc- 

 trine of the' formation of lime by vegetable power. 

 But though deeming M. Puvis altogether wrong 

 in this, his main an 1 most labored position, and 

 that the proofs cited above,as well as some others 

 in the preceding section, are of no worth, still 

 these pages which present his theory, contain what 

 is of more value. He places in a strong point of 

 view, the important truth that the atmos|ihere is 

 the great treasury of nature, from which nature 

 doubles and triples the amount of all the small 

 portions given to the earth by the industry of man. 

 The author's scale of actual products from differ- 

 ent grades of soil, is also interesting. It sustains 

 the position assumed in the Essay on Calcareous 

 Manures, that the worst soils are limed (or made 

 calcareous) to most profit — and that alimentary 

 manures, when needed, are most productive on 

 the best soils. — Ed. Far. Reg.] 



38. The fertilizing effect of fallow, or plough- 

 ing, of moving and working the soils, prove still 

 more that all these circumstances determine the 

 formation of fertilizing principles, and probahly of 

 saline principles, in all the parts of the soil which 

 receive the atmospheric influences. 



But salts are also formed in plants. The nitrate 

 of potash, which takes the place of sugar in the 

 beet the oxalate of potash, so abundant in sor- 

 rel the carbonate of potash in fern, in the tops 



of potatoes, and in almost all vegetables in the first 

 period of their life — the sulphate of potash in to- 

 bacco — the nitrate of potash in turnsole, and in 

 pellitory — prove, without reply, that vegetation 

 forms salts, as it forms the proper juices of plants, 

 since the soil contains the one kind no more than 

 the other. But can we say where plants take the 

 elements necessary for all these formations ? They 

 can take them only in the soil by means of their 

 roots, or in the atmosphere — in the soil, which 

 would itself lake them in the atmosphere, in pro- 

 portion to the consumption of plants — or direct- 

 ly in the atmosphere by means of their leaves, 

 which would there gather these elements^ And 

 if the analyses of the soils, and of the atmosphere, 

 show almost none of these elements, it will be 

 necessary to conclude from it that the substances 

 which analysis has found there, are themselves, or 

 would furnish if decomposed, the elements of the 

 saline substances, although science may not yet 

 have taught us the means of reaching that end. 



39. The formation of lime, like that of the sa- 

 line principles necessary to plants, is an operation 

 which employs all the forces of vegetation — and 

 these forces, directed to this formation, have no 

 energy left to give a great developement to plants : 

 but when the vegetable finds the calcareous piin- 

 ciples already formed in the soil, it makes use of 

 them, and preserves all its forces to increase its 

 own vigor and size. 



It would then result, from all that has been said, 



that lime modifies the texture of the soil — makes 



lit more friable — invigorates it — renders it more 



I permeable — gives it the power to better resist 



moisture as well as dryness — that it produces in 



the soil thehumate of lime which encloses a pow- 

 erful means of fertility — that lime increases much 

 the energy of the soil and of plants to draw from 

 the atmosphere the volatile substances oi which 

 plants are com].osed, oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, 

 and azote — that the limed soil in furnishing to 

 plants the liine which they iieetl, relieves the soib 

 and plants from em|)loying their powers to pro- 

 duce it — and finally, that lime promotes the for- 

 mation of fixed substances, earthy or saline, nec- 

 essary to vegetables. All this whole of recipro- 

 cal and reaction of lime, on the soil, plants, and 

 atmosphere, explains in a plausible manner its fer- 

 tilizing properties. We would, consequently have 

 nearly arrived at tlie resolving of an imjiortant ag- 

 rictiltural problem, upon which were accumulated 

 all these doubts. 



THE AMOUNT OF LIME TAKEN UP ET VEGETATION. 



40. The ashes of plants from calcareous soils, 

 or those wliich have l)ecn made so by manures, 

 contain 30 per cent, of the cailionate and phos- 

 phate of lime, which, Ijy taking off the crop, is 

 lost to the t^oil. But the product of lime land of 

 middle quality, is during the two years of the 

 course of crops, about 20,0001bs. of dry products 

 to the hectare, which contain a little less than a 

 hectolitre of lime in the calcareous compounds of 

 the ashes. The vegetation has then used half a 

 hectolitre a year. But we have shown that there 

 was i;ecessary, on an average, three hectolitres per 

 boctjfre each year. Vegetation then does not take 

 up, in nature, but a sixth of the lime which is giv- 

 en profitably to the soil ; the other five-sixths are 

 lost, are carried away by the water, descend to the 

 lower beds of earth, are combined, or serve to 

 form other compounds, perhaps even the saline 

 compounds, of which we have seefl that lime so 

 powerfully favors the formation. Another por- 

 tion, also, widiout doubt, remains in the soil, and 

 serves to form this reserve, which in the end dis- 

 penses, for many years, with the repetition of 



liming. 



(Concluded next week J 



AGKICUIiTURE, 



We observe with astonishment and regret the 

 coiiclttsive evidence which appears in every di- 

 rection that the business of agriculture does not 

 receive the attention due to it in this country, but 

 is treated with absolute neglect, co:ii])ared with 

 other pursuits. This ought not to be, and the in- 

 habitants of this country will yet learn that they 

 have comtnitted a gross error by abandoning the 

 cultivation of the soil for less independent and 

 more precarious modes of obtaining a livelihood. 



Who has ever before heard of such a state of 

 things as now exists here ? We have a soil as 

 fertile as any that the sun ever shone upon, a 

 country almost boundless in extent, and land so 

 cheap that any man may purchase a farm with 

 the proceeds of a few month's labor, yet we are 

 actually importing for consumption, immense 

 quantities of agricultural products from foreign 



