40 



NEW ENGLAND FAKMER. 



Jan. 



orange and lemon orchards rent higher. The la- 

 borer receives about twenty cents per day. Two- 

 thirds of the island belong to the church, and 

 such is the policy of government that tenants 

 take no interest in improving the land, and con- 

 tent themselves Avith a bare subsistence. 



FERTILIZERS. 



The Hon. Thos. G. Clemson next fills some for- 

 ty pages with a dissertation on "Fertilizers." The 

 picture which he draws of the future of our agri- 

 culture is rather gloomy. 



"Farm as you may, upon the majority of soils, 

 without the use of extraneous fertilizers, your 

 crops will certainly diminish until total impover- 

 ishment shall leave no other alternative than 

 starvation or emigration. . . . Exhaustion is 

 but an affair of time ; knowing the amount of nu- 

 triment in the soil, we may make an approximate 

 calculation, and decide when, under different 

 modes of treatment, it will work sterility." — pp. 

 172-3. 



Of the elements of fertility he regards phospho- 

 rus the most important, the most liable to loss, 

 and the most difficult to be procured. 



"There can be no civilization without popula- 

 tion, no population without food, and no food 

 without phosphoric acid. Indeed it might be ea- 

 sily shown that the march of civilization has fol- 

 lowed the direction of supply of that article." — 

 p. 172. 



For all the other substances essential to fertili- 

 ty he thinks farmers need feel comparatively lit- 

 tle anxiety, as they abound in earth, rocks, air 

 and water. So indeed does phosphoric acid, but 

 not in the same profusion as the other substances, 

 and the amount returned from the barn-yard is in- 

 finitely less than that carried away from the soil 

 in grain, hay, milk, bone and flesh, "even on the 

 most economically regulated farms." The loss 

 that is constantly taking place in this most essen- 

 tial element of fertility and life is greatly deploi-ed 

 by the writer of this paper. He mentions several 

 ways in which this loss occurs, — among others, 

 "the burial of the dead." "By this practice," he 

 says, "much is entirely withdrawn from circula- 

 tion ; for the depth at which the bodies are de- 

 posited in the ground, is below the reach of veg- 

 etation." Allowing four pounds of phosphorus 

 to each individual, he makes some calculations of 

 the amount of loss which occurs in this way. 



By the importation of bones, the principal fer- 

 tilizing element of which is phosphoric acid, and 

 other foreign fertilizers, he thinks England has 

 attained her present prosperous condition. This 

 importation has increased "to an enormous ex- 

 tent during the last few years," yet as long ago as 

 in 18;n, no less than $1,273,000 worth of bones 

 were imported into the United Kingdom — while 

 the home supply was estimated at $2,500,000. 



Directions are given for the preparation of 



bones, and farmers are earnestly cautioned 

 against fraud in prepared manures, and advised 

 to manufacture their own composts. 



But this essay is by no means confined to a 

 single subject. Considerable space is given to 

 irrigation. In this connection he makes the fol- 

 lowing extract from Liebig : 



There is not to be found in chemistry a more 

 wonderful phenomenon, and which more con- 

 founds human wisdom, than is presented by the 

 soil of a garden or field. 



By the simplest experiment, any one may sat- 

 isfy himself that rain-water, filtered through field 

 or garden soil, does not dissolve out a trace of 

 potash, ammonia, silicic or phosphoric acid. The 

 soil does not give up to the water one particle of 

 the food of plants which it contains. The most 

 continuous rain cannot remove from the field, ex- 

 cept mechanically, any of the constituent ele- 

 ments of its fertility. The soil not only retains 

 firmly all the food of plants which is actually in 

 it, but its power to preserve all that may be use- 

 ful to them extends much further. If rain, or 

 rather water, holding in solution ammonia, pot- 

 ash, phosphoric or silicic acids, be brought in 

 contact with the soil, these substances disappear 

 almost immediately from the solution. The soil 

 withdraws them from the water. Only such sub- 

 stances are completely withdrawn by the soil as 

 are indispensable articles of food for plants. All 

 others remain AvhoUy or in part in solution." 



The action and importance of lime, marl, plas- 

 ter, sulphate of barytes, magnesia, S:c., &c., as 

 well as phosphorus, are fully explained and illus- 

 trated. Drainage is left to works specially devot- 

 ed to that important subject. 



In relation to the state or form in which plant 

 food is absorbed by vegetation. Dr. Clomson says : 

 "Plants assimilate food in a state of atomic di- 

 vision." lie thinks the received opinion that 

 plant food must necessarily be in a soluble state 

 for assimilation, is contradicted by facts. 



"It is well known that plant vitality has the 

 power, as it were, of corroding insoluble sub- 

 stances, and absorbing them by the roots. Vari- 

 eties of plants growing upon rocks contain large 

 quantities of the substance of which the rock is 

 composed. Such is known to be the case with 

 lichens growing on calcareous rocks. Again, the 

 roots of the grape-vine have been found sur- 

 rounding, and its rootlets insinuated in every 

 manner through, around, and enveloping a piece 

 of bone, which finally disappears. 



Cutting Off Cows' Teats.— Mr. S. E. Todd, 

 of Lake Ridge, N. Y., has removed troublesome 

 supernumerary teats from his cows by twisting 

 very small wire so tightly around them as to stop 

 all circulation. In three or four weeks the teats 

 dropped off without producing soreness in the 

 udder, which healed in a few days. In describing 

 his process in the Boston Cultivator, he says he 

 fastened his cows so that they could not kick, and 

 twisted the wire with pliers. 



