PROCEEDINGS OF THE FARMERS' CLUB, 411 



constituents are added in different conditions, such as are found 

 in barn-yard manure, etc. 



We find lichens, mosses, and the lower class of plants growing 

 from the surfaces of rocks, but on the sides of the mountain where, 

 for various reasons, the debridation of the rock is more rapid, 

 the debris will not sustain the highest .class of plants. A single 

 rose carried from there to a garden, or old soil, and duplicated 

 in the usual way, will become a double rose. The cultivated 

 double rose, however, if carried back to the fresh debris of the 

 mountain, will pass back again to the original single rose ; and 

 it is so with the whole family of plants. 



Now we find that after a time this debris, occupying the valley 

 below and receiving the great variety of accumulation, becomes 

 a fertile soil. It becomes so from the plants growing upon it 

 being returned to and decaying within it ; and it is fair to infer 

 that the inorganic constituents contained in those plants, upon 

 being restored to the soil, are more rapidly assimilated by a new 

 growth. 



We grind feldspar rock, containing 1 7 per cent, of potash, to 

 a fine powder, and apply it to plants, requiring potash, and it 

 will not fertilize them at all ; but we apply potash, separated 

 from wood ashes, and find it to be an excellent manure. Soil may 

 be composed of debris from limestone rock, and yet need lime to 

 enable it to raise crops. The action of limestone rock is also 

 very different from that of carbonate of lime in other parts of 

 the country. Some English chalk farms contain 40 per cent, of 

 carbonate of lime, and are fertile ; the Plains of Athens contain 

 40 per cent., and are fertile ; but if we burn the limestone rock 

 of Westchester county, and then expose it till it obtains car- 

 bonic acid, the chemist would pronounce it to be precisely simi- 

 lar to the English chalk ; add 2000 bushels of this carbonate of 

 lime to an acre of land in Westchester county, it will render it 

 sterile for a century, possibly, though it is less than two per cent, 

 of the weight of that soil, to the depth of twelve inches. Now, 

 in the one case, the two per cent, of carbonate of lime renders 

 the soil barren, and in the other that with 40 per cent., is fertile. 

 The difference is in the condition of this carbonate of, lime; 

 though the laboratory would pronounce them to be exactly alike. 

 Analytically, some specimens of granite correspond closely to the 

 ashes of a cabbage ; still, ground granite placed around a growing 

 cabbage, will not increase its growth, while the ashes of burnt 



