VOL,. XVII ]VH. 50. 



AND HORTICULTURAL REGISTER. 



395 



Cocoons and Silk. 

 To tlie person who shall raise and exhibit the 



largest quantity of cocoons S4 



For the next greatest quantity 3 



For do do 2 



For every ounce of wrought silk raised and 

 worked in the county, ten cents. 

 p. S. — Cloths, fancy articles, products of the dai- 

 ry, cocoons andsilks articles of invention, fruits, veg- 

 etables, &c. must be deposited in the town house 

 before 9 o'clock, A. M. on the day of exhibition. 



Articles manufactured out of the county, not ad- 

 missible. 



Pkemioms claimable in future Years. 

 To the person who shall on the first day of 

 September, 1840, have the largest quantity 

 of land in the best state of preparation for 

 English mowing, which is now fresh mead- 

 ow or swamp land $25 

 Second premium for the same object 15 

 Third do do do 10 

 Claimants for the above premiums must make 

 entries with Morrill Allen, Chairman of the 

 committee on improvements, on or before the 

 first day of June, 1839, that the committee 

 may have opportunity to view the land be- 

 fore operation upon it commences. 

 For the most extensive forest of any sort of 

 trees suitable for timber, raised from the 

 seed, not less than 1000 trees to the acre, 

 which shall be in the most flourishing con- 

 dition and more than five years old in Sep- 

 tember, 1845 $"50 

 Second premium for the same object 30 

 Third do do 20 



Premiums not demanded within one year will be 

 considered as generously given to promote the ob- 

 jects of the Society. 



On all premiums above five dollars awarded to 

 gentlemen not members of the Society, the Treas- 

 urer is directed to make a deduction of 25 per cent, 

 to increase the funds. 



The Trustees will not consider themselves oblig- 

 ed by the terms of the above offers, to give a pre- 

 mium in any case, when it shall be evident there 

 has been no competition, nor more than ordinary 

 exertion. 



All entries for premiums may be made by letters 

 post paid. Letters not post paid, will not be con- 

 sidered. 



By order of the Trustees. 



ISAAC ALDEN. 

 Bridgeioater, January, 1839. 



The subjoined essay contains information and 

 matter for reflection to our farmers, of the very 

 highest importance. We urge upon them to give 

 it more than one careful reading. We may be 

 thought importunate in urging so strongly the sub- 

 ject of liquid manure upon tlie farmers, but we 

 should not be true to our convictions of its impor- 

 tance if we failed to do it. The farmers in the in- 

 terior are constantly complaining of the want of 

 manure ; and yet they take no measures whatever 

 to supply the deficiency by saving their liquid ma- 

 nure. The farmers in the vicinity of the capital 

 and the large towns pay three, four, five, six, and 

 we have known to be paid even seven dollars per 

 cord for manure, and then transport it several miles, 

 and yet the subject of liquid manure is hardly 

 thought of Two or three things may be consid- 

 ered as well established, and they are of the high- 

 est moment. The liquid manure of an animal is of 



equal value as the solid manure, if the whole of 

 each could be preserved and applied. Next, hu- 

 man urine is among the most efficacious of all ma- 

 nures ; next, plants absorb nothing which is not in 

 a fluid state ; and manures applied in a fluid state 

 ore more active, immediate, and powerful tlian 

 when applied in any other form. II. C. 



ON MANURES— THEIR USE AND COMPO- 

 SITION. 



BY CUTHBEBT WILLIAM JOHNSON, ESQ. 



Liquid Manure. 



It is only in modern days that the idea of apply- 

 ing fertilizing matters to the soil, in a fluid state, 

 has been seriously entertained by the cultivators of 

 the soil. This great modern improvement has been 

 one of the results of applying the researches of 

 philosophy to the processes of the farmer — the fruit 

 of carefully conducted experiments first suggested 

 by tlie sagacious observations of the chemist. 



It could not, however, have escaped the notice 

 of the very earliest cultivators of the soil, that the 

 drainage of the farm-yard, as it dispersed itself over 

 the land, produced a most luxuriant crop of grass ; 

 that the ground on which a dunghill had rested 

 was ever distinguished for the rankness of its veg- 

 etable products, and that those grass lands which 

 were periodically flooded by the upland waters, 

 were the most valuable of meadows, — all Egypt in 

 its adoration of the Nile, testified to the same great 

 truth : still amid all these self-apparent facts, ages 

 elapsed before any correct conclusions were formed 

 as to the cause of the fertilizing power of these 

 liquid manures. 



It was held to be the result of water, and water 

 only, for no regard was had to the earthy, saline, 

 or organic substances with which it was impreg- 

 nated, and the fertility produced by a dunghill was 

 sagely attributed, not to the fluid matters drained 

 from it, but from the dunghill warmin<^ the land ; 

 and so far did they carry their arguments, that 

 some of the Greek philosophers were fully convinc- 

 ed that water, and pure water only, was the sole 

 food of plants, an error which centuries afterwards 

 iM. Van Helmont, a celebrated Dutch philosopher 

 nearly succeeded in perpetuating by some curious 

 though deceptive experiments upon a willow tree, 

 which he nourished for a lengthened period solely 

 by rain water, which water, thus collected in the 

 ordinary way, always contains earthy and other 

 substances, in minute proportions it is true, yet 

 quite sufficient to furnish an ample supply for the 

 willow, as M. Bergman afterwards very clearly 

 proved, and every attempt to raise plants from pure 

 water has invariably failed. An oak raised from 

 an acorn in pure water, makes less and less pro- 

 gress every year, and those persons who cultivate 

 hyacinths and other bulbous roots in water, are 

 well aware that without these bulbs are placed in 

 the earth every otlier year, they actually refuse to 

 blow, and at last cease even to vegetate. It is 

 clearly proved, therefore, that it is not pure water 

 alone which constitutes the chief fertilizing ingre- 

 dient in liquid manures, as was formerly supposed. 

 Liquid manure, however, like all other fertilizers, 

 must be applied with discretion, and in accordance 

 with the habits of the crop, thus the proportion of 

 flood water, in which the rice plant or the grasses 

 of the meadow grow luxuriantly, would be destruc- 

 tive to barley or wheat, an excess of any kind in- 

 deed of manure is naturally pernicious to all plants. 

 Almost all the earthy, saline, or alkaline substan- 



ces found in vegetables are solulbe in water — thus 

 lime, gypsum, and even silica, apparently totally 

 insoluble substances, and very common vegetable 

 ingredients, are all in very small proportions found 

 in water, and there is littlo doubt but that all these 

 substances are absorbed by plants in the fluid state, 

 for every attempt of Sir Humphrey Davy to make 

 plants absorb the fine impalpable powder of char- 

 coal, obtained by washing gunpowder, entirely 

 failed. It has been shown also by various well-con- 

 trived experiments that the roots of plants have the 

 power of separating the various substances dissolv- 

 ed together in water in a Very curious manner. — 

 Davy caused the roots of some plants of mint to be 

 analysed, which had grown both in pure water and 

 in sugar and water. One hundred and twenty 

 grains of the roots of the mint which had grown in 

 common water, yielded three grains and a half of a 

 deep olive extract of a sweetish and astringent 

 taste; one hundred and twenty grains of the roots 

 which had grown in the sugar and water, afforded 

 five grains of pale, greenish, sweetish extract, not 

 so astringent as the other. This, therefore, is 

 another instance of the power possessed by plants 

 of absorbing many manures in an unaltered state. 

 Many experiments with saline manures support this 

 position, thus in those of the late IMr George Sin- 

 clair. 



1450 grains of wheat chafi", grown on 

 an unsalted soil, yielded of com- 

 mon salt 2 3-4 grains. 

 1450 do. from a soil salted with 44 



bushels of salt per acre 4 do. 



14.50 do. seeds, from soils unsalted 1-6 do. 

 1450 do. from soil treated with 44 



bushels of salt per acre 1-4 do. 



In this case the quantity of common salt absorb- 

 ed by the plant evidently increased with the in- 

 crease of tlie supply. The preference, too, which 

 plants show for different salts is very remarkable, 

 as first shown in some very curious experiments 

 by M. Saussure. In these trials various salts were 

 dissolved together in water, and plants of polygo- 

 num persecaria, and bidens canabina, with their 

 roots, were placed in the solution, the same weight 

 of each salt was dissolved, and the solution con- 

 tained 100th of its weight of each salt, and in stat- 

 ing the result every salt is supposed to consist of 



100 parts. 



Proportion absorb- 

 ed by the plant. 



1. Sulphate of soda (glauber salt) 11.7 



Muriate of soda (common salt) 



2. Sulphate of soda 



Muriate of potash 

 3. — Sulphate of soda 

 Muriate of soda 

 Acetate of lime 

 4. — Gum 



Sugar 



Other plants showed similar results in the vary- 

 ing quantity of the salts which they absorbed. — 

 Such were the Scotch fir, the mentha piperita, pep- 

 permint, &c., as long as they were furnished with 

 their roots ; but if these were cut off, or removed 

 in any way, the plants then absorbed the solutions 

 indiscriminately. 



It is from plants always absorbing their food in a 

 fluid state that liquid manures are so valuable as 

 fertilizers ; for in the dissolution of the excrements 

 of animals in water, as practised so advantageously 

 in foreisn countries, the dung is merely rendered 



22. 

 12. 

 17. 



6. 

 10. 



0. 

 26. 

 36. 



