496 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Nov. 



into them, causing tliem to rot, and thus not only 

 destroy their own food and that of their offspring, 

 but also destroy their own future offspring by caus- 

 ing the very potatoes to rot, on which their nits 

 or eggs are laid. This is a species of insecticide 

 not laid down in any of the books, and is far from 

 being a true representation of insect ecoiiomy. At 

 least, it is not thus with other insects. They do not 

 poison the vegetables on which they subsist. They 

 bite them ; they suck them ; they devour them ; 

 but they do not poison them and cause them to 

 rot. There is no venom in their bite ; so that 

 the vegetables, thus bitten and wounded by them, 

 do not blast and rot at a precise, exact time, and 

 at a particular season of the year, always tak- 

 ing place within the limits of a very few days. 



This, if true with regard to the potato rot, must 

 be regarded as the commencement of a new and 

 strange economy of vegetable and insect life. For 

 these potato insects not only destroy what they 

 eat, but they poison what they do not eat, and 

 render it useless to themselves and others. It 

 will require the most positive, dii'ectand convinc- 

 ing proof to show, that insects infuse a poison in- 

 to potatoes sufficient to cause them to rot ; where- 

 as, it is very easy to prove that the various kinds 

 of insects breed in rotten and decaying vegetables, 

 while the rot and decay are owing to other causes. 



Besides, how can we defend the instincts of 

 these potato insects which lead them to poison 

 and destroy the very vegetables on which they 

 and their whole race depend for subsistence ? No 

 other insects behave in this manner ! No other 

 insects are endowed with such absurd and pre- 

 posterous instincts ! JoHN GoLDSBURY. 



Warwick, Mass., 1860. 



PHOSPHORUS— SOURCE AND WATURE. 



Phosphorus is but sparingly diffused as a com- 

 ponent of minerals — it is to the animal kingdom 

 that we turn for our supplies — to bones and fluids 

 of the body. These are our magazines of phos- 

 phorus, from which it is extracted in large quan- 

 tities now required for matches and the other 

 manufactures into which it enters. 



The leading characteristic of phosphorus is its 

 extreme combustibility. Place a small fragment 

 of it in a glass tube, apply heat and ignite it, 

 when, on impelling a current of air through the 

 tube, the phosphorus burns with great rapidity. 

 The combustion having terminated, two different 

 residues are produced, one a red colored sub- 

 stance and the other a white one. The latter, or 

 white, is an acid compound of phosphorus with 

 oxygen. The former m as long imagined to be a 

 combination of phosphorus with oxygen, also, 

 but in a lesser ratio than necessary to constitute 

 an acid. Within the last few years, however, M. 

 Schrotter, of Vienna, demonstrated that the red 

 compound in question was merely phosphorus. 

 No combination has taken place to form this 

 compound, but the phosphorus has assumed a 

 second, or allotropic condition, just as sulphur 

 does under the operation of heat. 



Common phosphoi'us has to be kept in water, 

 for the purpose of guarding against spontaneous 

 combustion; allotropic phosphorus, however, may 

 be kept unchanged in atmospheric air ; indeed it 

 may be wrapped up in paper, and carried in the 

 pocket even with impunity. Common phospho- 



rus readily disolves in the sulphuret of carbon, 

 whereas allotropic phosphorus does not. 



Phosphorus exists in all grains, and it forms 

 a minute portion of every loaf of bread we eat. 

 It exists in the human brain, but the greatest 

 quantity of it is found combined with lime in the 

 bones of animals. The phosphate of lime sells at 

 high prices, as a fertilizing agent, simply because 

 it is a substance difficult to obtain large quanti- 

 ties of. Unlike svdphnr and lime, which are ob- 

 tained most abundantly from the mineral world, 

 all our phosphorus is obtained from organic cre- 

 ation. — Scientific American. 



For the New England Farmer. 

 FERTILITY OF MOUNTAINS. 



Mr. Editor : — In examining the Farmer of 

 Sept. 8th, I find a few rather singular ideas (that 

 is, to me,) advanced. Your correspondent, "S. P. 

 M.," I see, is trying to give us an insight into the 

 gigantic operations of nature to bring about the 

 result of rendering soil lying at the base of a 

 mountain fertile. That Dame Nature at times 

 does bring into the field all her tremendous forces 

 no one questions. But is it not in the general or- 

 der of things, that a more silent, unobtrusive 

 agency is employed ? The constant attrition of 

 water running down the slopes of a mountain will 

 wear away the hardest rock ; it is borne to the plains 

 below to rejuvenate the famished soil. The winds 

 of heaven, laden with a great variety of com- 

 pounds, among which are free carbonic acid, which 

 vegetation absorbs, and the compounds of nitro- 

 gen which the soil will absorb in large quantities, 

 will go farther toward fitting the soil for a crop 

 than all the rocks and boulders precipitated to 

 the plains by Friend "S. P. M.'s" frost-power. 

 How in the name of reason are nodules of rock, 

 of any size, lying loose and scattered on the sur- 

 face, to be disintegrated ? I cannot tell, nor do I 

 believe that "S. P. M." can. Not many miles from 

 the town in which I reside, is a tract of land ly- 

 ing at the base of the Green Mountains, but so 

 far rem.oved that the rocks and boulders, to do 

 their utmost, cannot reach it. This tract is from 

 one-half mile to two miles in width, and fifteen 

 or twenty miles in length, a share of which has 

 been under cultivation 30, 40, and some as long 

 as 60 years. It will produce about one crop of 

 corn, then three or four crops of rye ; then it 

 wants rest two or three years, when the same ro- 

 tation can be gone through with again, and this 

 without manure. The land is full of small stones 

 rarely weighing as much as 50 pounds, and from 

 that down to the smallest pebble. They are com- 

 posed mostly of silica. Now how is soil rendered 

 fertile short of the action of the atmosphere ? I 

 see no other solution of the question. Can any 

 one else ? Regulus. 



EijJton, Vt., Sept. 15, 1860. 



Sheep Manure. — In England land is some- 

 times manured by confining sheep at night on a 

 small surface, and moving the fence or hurdles, 

 till the whole field has been treated to a few nights' 

 lodging. The dressing thus given by 300 sheep, 

 Stephens says, is sufficient in a week for an acre, 

 and is worth fifteen dollars. 



