AND HORTICULTURAL REGISTER. 



PUBLISHED BY JOSEPH BRECK & CO., NO. 52 NORTH MARKET STREET, (Agriculturai. Wahehocse.) 



VOL. XVII.] 



BOSTON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, APRIL 17, 18;39. 



N. E . FARMER. 



[Prom the Second Report of the Agricultural Commissioner.] 



LETTERS FROM S. L. DANA, M. D., ON 



ASHES, LIME, &c.. 



LETTER I. 



Lowell, February 16, 1839. 

 Dear Sib, — You liave asked me how the action 

 of ashes, leeched, or unleeched, whether of wood, 

 peat, or coal, is to be explained on my views of veg- 

 etation. The best answer I can give you, is to 

 state what is the composition of ashes, and to glance 

 at my views. By the last, 1 presume you refer to 

 statements in Prof. Hitchcock's late report. I have 

 there said that fertility depends on salts and geine. 

 Without the last there is no healthy vegetation. 

 The great body of the soil, in which salts and geine 

 act, is only the comminuted remains of rocks, usu- 

 ally called primitive. We have termed this " gi-an- 

 itic sand." We have thus three great, natural 

 divisions of the ingredients of soil : 1st. Geine, 2d. 

 Salts, 3d. Granitic Sand. Strictly speaking, we 

 have two classes only, geine and salts, for the gran- 

 itic sand is a mass of salts ; a mass, in which silex 

 acts as an acid, and alkalies, lime, magnesia, alu- 

 mine, metallic o.xides as bases, a mass of silicates. I 

 prefer this term to granitic sand and I shall hereafter 

 use it. Let us now glance at these tliree divisions. 



1. Geine. — To ray remarks, already published 

 by Professor Hitchcock, I now add, that geine en- 

 ters vegetables simply as geine, or as an alkaline, 

 earthy, or metallic geate, dissolved either in water 

 or in alkali. The organic and inorganic acids and 

 salts of the plant, decompose these varied forms. 

 The elements of geine, its oxygen, hydrogen, an I 

 carbon, play their usual part in vegetable economy. 

 Acetic, and probably some of the other vegetable 

 acids, do not precipitate the alkaline solution of 

 geine. In this case, it may still circulate in fluid 

 form in plants. The earthy and alkaline bases of 

 the geates form the bases of the various salts which 

 plants afford. 



2. Salts. — This class includes, first, compounds 

 of geine ; second, alkaljne salts, potash, soda, am- 

 monia, and all their combinations, known by the 

 names of carbonates, sulphates, nitrates, muriates, 

 &c., as common salts, soapei's spei^t leifs, consist- 

 ing chiefly of muriate of potash mixed with a pecu- 

 liar organic compound called glyceine, saltpetre, 

 ashes leeched or fresh, urine, containing abundant 

 phosphates and ammoniacal salts, soot; containing 

 both ammonia and geine ; third, lime in all its 

 forms, marl, shells, chalk, marble, air-slacked lime, 

 plaster, bones. 



3. Silicates. — To have a distinct idea of this 

 division of soil, let us tabulate the composition of 

 argillite, and of the several simple minerals, wliose 

 aggregate composes primitive rocks. Though anal- 

 yses, imperfect as they are, have not yet discovered 

 phosphoric acid in all tliese aggregates, yet I doubt 

 not, that accurate investigation will detect its pres- 

 ence in all granitic sand. Phosphate of liuie is 

 by no mea^Ban uncommon mineral in primitive 

 jocks, and (Srloridea are widely diffused. 



Table of the constituents of the elements of silicaled 

 soils or granitic saiul. 



Argillite contains notable portions of carbon. 

 The source of this not only in this, but in other 

 primitive rocks, I shall show elsewhere, is theg-eine 

 and geates., held in solution in the water, from which 

 these sedimentary rocks were deposited. 



Sulphurct of iron is abundant in primitive rocks. 

 Its decomposition produces with the silicates, sul- 

 phates of alkalies, earths, and oxides. Keeping in 

 view the remark on phosphates and muriates, and 

 we have then, at a glance, the inorganic elements 

 of all plants. 



Burning reduces tb«se constituents to two clas- 

 ses , ashes and volatile salts. The last are found 

 in soot. The ashes are formed of salts amd sili- 

 cates. These vary in quantity and quality, not on- 

 ly in different plants, but, as is well known, in 

 different parts of the same plant. Lot us take oak, 

 beech, basswood, birch, as the types of the compo- 

 sition of hard wood ashes, yellow pine, — [pinus 

 abies) — as the type of soft wood ashes ; and wheat 

 straw as the type of the ashes of the grasses. 



The average quantity of ashes from 100 parts of 

 dry oak, beech, birch, (Sic, is 2.87. Ashes are di- 

 vided, by the simple process of leeching, into two 

 parts, soluble and insoluble in water. 100 parts of 

 hard wood ashes thus afford — soluble, 13.57 ; insol- 

 uble, 86.43. 



100 parts of the soluble contain : 

 Carbonic acid, 22.70 



Sulphuric acid, 6.43 



Muriatic acid, 1.82 



Silex, .95 



Potash and soda. 67.96 



99.86 

 100 parts of the insoluble contain : 

 Carbonic acid, 35.80 



Phosphoric acid, 3.40 



Silex 4.25 



Oxide iron, .52 



Oxide H'anganese, 2.15 



Magnesia, 3.55 



Lime, 35.80 



Pine, — [pinus abies,) — 100 parts dry wood afford 

 only .0083 of ashes ; of wliich 100 parts afford, 

 soluble, 50 ; insoluble, 50. 



100 parts of the soluble contain : 

 Carbonic acid, 13.50 



Sulphuric acid, 6.90 



Silex, 2. 



Potash and soda, 69.70 



7.90 



100. 



1 00 parts of the insoluble contain : 



Carbonic acid, 21.50 



Phosphoric acid, l.gQ 



Silex, la 



Magnesia, g.jQ 



Oxide iron, - 22.30 



Oxide manganese, 5.50 



Lime, 27.20 



^eat ashes abounds in carbonate, sulphate, and 

 especially phosphate of lime. T have always traced 

 free afbali in peat ashes ; but alkali exists in it, 

 rather a.* silKjate, as in leeched ashes. Anthracite 

 coal ashes contain a carbonate of lime, alumina, 

 and oxide of iron. It is good, so far as these 

 abound. 



The above are calculated on the analysis of 

 Berthier, who has detected soda in the ashes of all 

 plants. The elements are stated singly ; because 

 we have tlius at one view, tlie amount of each, and, 

 as I shall show, it is the base chiefly which acts 

 The agricultural value of ashes may be determined 

 by reference to these tables. In what state these 

 elements may be combined in plants, we can only 

 determine theoretically. Thus, the phosphoric acid, 

 by its affinities, would be united in the hard woods 

 as above, with the lime and iron, — forming in each 

 100 parts of the insoluble portion of ashes, phos- 

 phate lime, 5.40 ; phosphate iron, 1.86. 



Of the various substances which chemistry de- 

 tects in the ashes, few probably exist in the living 

 plant, in that state of combination, in which we find 

 them in ashes. Burning decomposes and recom- 

 poses them anew. We are by no means to con- 

 clude, because we find various salts in plants, that 

 they existed as such in the soil. Of the soluble 

 alkaline salts, probably none exist in the soil. They 

 are products of vegetation educed from the compo- 

 sition of silicates and salts. 



The composition of the insoluble part of ashes 

 gives us nearly the constituents of leeched ashes. 

 If the soapboilers' process was as perfect as that 

 which the chemist employs — still his leeched ashes 



