388 [Assembly 



t 

 Mr. Pike. — I saw that stable in 16tli street, and I heard the 



evidence in the law case about it. When I saw that stable, it 

 was very filthy. 



Subjects adopted for next meeting — Culture of Madder, and 

 Human food; proposed by Judge Van Wyek. Adj. 



H. MEIGS, SecY 



MEIG». USE OF AMMONIA IN AGRICULTURE. 



The labors of modern chemists have taught us, (and it is one 

 of their finest discoveries,) that it is to azote that manures owe all 

 their v^alue, and that their fertilizing qualities are exactly in pro- 

 portion to the quantity which they contain of this agent. 



In its simple form of gas it is not always useful, it cannot be 

 absorbed by plants except when combined with hydrogen. Be- 

 sides it is demonstrated now,, that the atmosphere is the grand 

 source from which all vegetables provide themselves with this 

 substance. Hence the great utility of burying certain growing, 

 crops in the earth for manure. The leguminous vegetables are 

 particularly valuable for this purpose, and long experience more 

 than the work of science, taught agriculturists to use that par- 

 ticular family of plants to restore the exhausted fertility of their 

 lands. Chemistry, properly so called, did notmake that discovery^ 

 but it has come in aid of it, to render the practice clear, and to jus- 

 tify a usage so long time ago established. 



It results from the researches of many chemists — but particular- 

 ly of Boussingault and Liebig, that the causes which yield the 

 dose of ammonia to the atmosphere, so indispensable to vegeta- 

 tion, are two. The most direct one is the decomposition of or- 

 ganized bodies, all of which contain more or less of tliis agent 

 azote. All vegetables have it, but it is particularly condensed 

 in the bodies of animals — it ascends to the air and is dissolved 

 rapidly in the watery vapor with which air is always charged. 



The second cause, less studied, and a few years ago its exist- 

 ence not even suspected, is the electric discharges perpetually 

 succeeding one another between or in the beds of atmosphere, in 

 certain regions of the globe, Boussingault and Liebig do not hesi- 

 tate to proclaim, that the carbonate of ammonia must have existed 



