THE AGRICULTURAL GAZETTE. 



123 



je* more f<" 



ent clauses are inserted than tl 



le 



SeprohiM..- from selling manure 



T . .-. „« tip nart of tl 



ure, straw, or moadow- 

 n crops in succession, 



- similar to that of carbonate of lime, bat less powerful, as 1 principle can be obtained. This is Casein, which is iden. 



- it does not contain snrh a strnn,r phpmiral hn>*e as the tical with the curd of milk, from which cheese is made 



from tauing '"" " ' _ £ f tJ tenant to leave a 



•Hp-tat" ~J*JZ*« * d ^ down with 



^V^potion of the arable land so* 

 XSLffS the end of his term. -Cultor. 



%^' m m (To be continued.) 



logy. 



nes • 



, and I do not 

 that I have pre- 



nM MINERAL AND INORGANIC MANURES. 

 0> an- No. VIII. 



TVr Professor Charles Sprexgel. 



i J. one of those mineral substances which can 



•i" L used as a manure on a large scale, for it is to 



, y a \ n roanv localities, generally forming thick strata. 



^ f ° Un i baTrerf localities are at times most wonderfully 



m ^l bv it and this is the more important for the 



,ainrote<i . > . tQ be obtaine a at a trifling expense. 



iTH aordinarv effects which the marling of fields has 

 20a ed have induced some Agriculturists to consider it 

 \HTvIus ultra of b\\ manures; they thought that it 

 could even supersede dung. There have been put forth 

 ral theories as to the mode in which marl acts, but it 

 wodd lead me too far to state them all, and it would take 

 nTitill more time to refute them. I shall therefore limit 

 mTself to that one which is not only in accordance with 

 the newest doctrines of Chemistry and Vegetable Physio- 

 but is also confirmed by the experiments which I 

 have made on the manuring properties of the single com- 

 ponent parts of marl. I shall leave it with the render to 

 compare mv theory with the older oi 

 doubt, that if all be taken into account 

 viouily said on the nutritive process of plants, he will find 

 them to be irreconcilable with Nature. 



If we leave clay out of the question, which can only 

 improve the mechanical texture of the soil, the chief in- 

 jreJient of marl, according to weight, is carbonate of 

 lime, which at times amounts to 50 per cent., and more. 

 We shall treat of it first. As lime has a great affinity to 

 humic acid, marl will endeavour to form that acid (pro- 

 vided that it does not already exist), from the vegetable 

 matter and the coal of humus in the soil ; but as the lime 

 ii already combined with carbonic acid, this will in a great 

 measure prevent it ; and then its combination with humic 

 acid is very gradual, and moreover, requires for the 

 operation (what is not to be overlooked), the assistance 

 of the sun's heat. When lime has combined with humic 

 acid in the proportion of 13 to 87, it is soluble in 2000 

 parti of water, and is then suitable as food for plants. 

 The carbonic acid, on the other hand, which the humic 

 acid has displaced is received by the water, and is also 

 absorbed by the plants. The advantage, however, which 

 the plants derive thereby is not great, as will appear from 

 the following calculation : Suppose 20,000 lbs. of marl, 

 containing 30 per cent, carbonate of lime, were brought 

 on one Maedeburg acre of land, the plants would receive 

 thereby 2b*40 lbs. of carbonic acid, for 100 lbs. carbonate 

 of lime are composed of 43.6 acid and 56.4 of lime ; but 

 it is proved by experiment that a period of 20 years is re- 

 quired for all the carbonate of lime of this quantity of 

 marl to be decomposed by the humic acid and the silica of 

 the soil ; and if the quantity of carbonic acid available to 

 the plants amounts annually to 132 lbs., this will 

 amount to an annual supply of only 36 lbs. of carbon. 

 W hat can this small quantity of carbon avail the crops ? 

 One crop of Rve (3000 lbs. of grain and straw) contains 

 more than 1500 lbs. of carbon! If, however, the soil 

 should not contain so much humic acid (22,4SGlbs.) as 

 would suffice for the saturation of all the lime communi- 

 cated to it by the marl, in the state of carbonate, in the 

 assumed case of 20,000 lbs. per acre ; then, the lime, 

 leaving the carbonic Jacid, would unite with the silica of 



the soil into a silicate of lime a substance which, being 



insoluble in water, cannot afford any nourishment to the 



plants. Still, silicate of lime will always be formed along 



with humate of lime ; partly because lime and humic acid 



cannot be everywhere in contact throughout the soil, 



partly because so much humic acid does not at any one 



'me exist in it as is necessary to unite with all the lime. 



Thup, a great disadvantage results for the plants, and the 



enccts of marl-roanure will cease the sooner (at least as 



ar as tne action of carbonate of lime is concerned), the 



more silicate of lime has been formed, which will be 



chiefly the case in very fine sands. The substance thus 



ormed will, as we have seen before, be again decomposed 



°. T the humic and carbonic acids ; but this process takes 



Pwce so slowly, that it will benefit the plants but very 



' ' e - A larger quantitv, however, of silicate of lime may 



wV k 0rnpOSed by the " itri( - chloric, and sulphuric acids, 



as 1 T 6 anm,all y conveyed by the rain to the soil ; and 



seidh C calcareous s * lts al "e thereby formed, it may be 



that the plants are thereby supplied with some scanty 



can \ ° f lime * The carbonate of lime, again, may also 

 ox? 8 * • comom,rj g of the atmospheric nitrogen and 

 ■nd^f" 1nt ° nitric acid ' whicn unites then with the lime, 

 thuif 8 Iirne - salt P ef re ; still, the quantity of the salt 

 to t _ mefl is probably 8 o small, that the advantage of it 

 chi f e ff^' ant Can scarce *y De taken into account. Tne 

 that therefore of the carbonate of lime in marl is, 



the ,t ., c ? !nWne8 wit{l t»e humic acid already existing in 

 that a * alt ver y advantageous to vegetation, and 



- ar > on account of its great affinity for that acid, it 



it does not contain such a strong chemical base as the 

 latter. With humic acid the carbonate of magnesia forn 

 a salt, which is soluble in 160 parts of water, and is useful 

 as food for plant*. The effect, therefore, of the carbonate 

 of magnesia contained in the marl must vanish sooner than 

 that of carbonate of lime ; the more so, as magnesia will 

 also readily combine with the silica of the soil into a sili- 

 cate which is insoluble in water. It may therefore some- 

 times be necessary to repeat a manuring with marl merely 

 on account of the magnesia. The carbonic acid thus 

 expelled by the silica and humic acid is not to be taken 

 into account at all, because if any sort of marl contained 

 even 30 per cent, of carbonate of lime, it scarcely ever con- 

 tains more than 5 per cent, of carbonate of magnesia. 

 Everything else which has been stated of carbonate of lime 

 refers equally to carbonate of magnesia. 



(To be continued. 



om poses the coal of humus and other organic matters 

 . n e sod ; although this is done in a fer less degree than 

 ^caustic lime— that, moreover, by this process several 



inlnh E . t,nces °* l, se to plants— as potash, nitrogen, 



pnunc acid, &c— are developed and brought into play, 



"as been already stated in speaking of lime. 



■ho* * # caroona te of lime, the carbonate of magnesia 



UDonK 006 - ° f the chilf components of marl. Its action 



P num,c acid, vegeUWe matter, and coal of humus, is 



ON THE APPLICATION OF CHEMISTRY TO 



AGRICULTURE UPON RATIONAL 



PRINCIPLES.— No. VII. 



(Continued from p. 10".) 



The Oleaginous Group. 

 Oil, fat, or wax, are contained in the cellular structure 

 of many plants. The odour of plants depends upon the 

 volatile oil which they contain. The fixed oils, such as 

 olive, rape, and linseed oils, are obtained by crushing 

 the fruit or seeds of the Olive, the Brassica, or the Flax 

 plant. Their use is well known. All plants of the Beet 

 tribe are rich in oil. Wax is not so easily obtained as 

 oil ; it may be procured by heat from the Poplar and 

 other plants, and the well known manufacture of this 

 article by bees proves its existence in plants, whence they 

 derive the material. 



A substance similar to tallow is yielded by a tree named 

 the Croton Sebiferum, and a tree which abounds on the 

 Malabar Coast, called Piney, bears a pulpy fruit that 

 yields a large quantity of tallow, almost as firm as wax*. 

 The Oleaginous Group, as is well known, are produced 

 in large abundance by animals. This is effected by the 

 transposition of the elements of food ; no food will pro- 

 duce fat that does not contain its elements. The import- 

 ance of bearing this in mind by those who undertake the 

 fattening of cattle, has been ably shown by Dr. L. Play- 

 fair, in the "Agricultural Journal." His lectures upon 

 this subject contain an elaborate view of Liebig's doctrines 

 and discoveries in this important branch of Chemistry. 



The designed use of the Oleaginous Elementary Group 

 in plants is evidently the support, the respiration, and 

 animal heat of the animals that live upon the plants 

 which contain them. Fat is not, properly so called, a 

 part of the organism of animals. That portion of this 

 Group which is not required to support respiration is 

 deposited as fat in the cellular structure. The carnivo- 

 rous animals deposit no fat. 



The Albuminous Group contains the elements of food 

 which are essential to the formation of muscle. Thus in 

 beef, the fat is produced from the .saccharine or oleagi- 

 nous, and the lean from the albuminous or azotised parts 

 of the food. The albuminous elements of food that exist 

 in plants have an important office to fulfil in the eco- 

 nomy of life. 



From the first moment of existence to that of death, 

 there is a continual decay of the tissues of the body in all 

 animals. Motion cannot take place without the death of 

 a part of the body. If a finger is moved, or a thought 

 exercised, a particle of matter is destroyed. This can 

 only be restored by the albuminous portion of the food. 

 Its importance thus requires no further comment. 

 Bread is aptly called M the staff of life." It gains its 

 title to this character by containing flour of starch (non- 

 azotised matter), and gluten (azotised matter), in such 

 proportions as are exactly adapted for human food ; so 

 that a person who would die if fed upon Potatoes or Rice, 

 or lean beef, alone, would thrive upon bread, which con- 

 tains a union of the two great divisions of food. 



The azotised group of the chemical constituents of 

 plants are represented by three principles contained 

 largely in vegetables; these are modifications of the same 

 principles. They are fibrine, albumen, and casein. 



1. Oi fibrine. — If the juice expressed from a vegetable 

 be allowed to stand, a green deposit will take place. 

 When the colouring matter of this deposit is removed, a 

 grayish-white substance will remain, which is vegetable 

 fibrine. This vegetable fibrine is identical in chemical com- 

 position with the lean part of beef when deprived of its 

 colouring matter. It is the principle which restores waste 



in the animal. 



2. Albumen.— -If we take a Turnip, or Mangold 

 VVurtzel, or Cauliflower— crush it, strain off the juice, 

 and subject this juice to a boiling heat, a coagulum will 

 form, which is identical in its nature and chemical consti- 

 tution with the white of egg.* This is vegetable albu- 

 men. It is fibrine in its primitive form ; organised by the 

 vital principle it becomes the fibrineof muscle, of beef, mut- 

 ton, &c. Theegg contains albumen and fat, with a little sul- 

 phur ; and ytt, from theegg, a perfect animal is produced 

 with flesh, feathers, beak, claws, and gelatinous bones. 

 The albumen is in this case metamorphosed into fibrine 

 (muscle) by the vital principle. Fibrine is converted into 

 gelatine, whence the bones, beak and claws, feathers, &c. 

 Of the perfect bird. Thus we see that in a Turnip or a 

 grain of Wheat we have the elements from which an 



animal can be formed. 



3. Casein.— From Peas and Beans, where it exists in 

 the form of legumen, and from many other plants./ third 



tic il with the curd of milk, from which cheese is made 

 Man and other mammalia are supported while young 

 entirely by milk, which fact furnishes the only known 

 instance where animal life is supported by one article 

 of food. Now, in milk there are combined the essential 

 elements of nutrition — sugar, oil (butter), which are non- 

 azotised, and the azotised principle casein (cheese.) 



It is impossible to glance at these beautiful facts, dwelt 

 upon by Liebig and others, without being struck with the 

 harmony and perfection evinced in the design of Infinite 



Wisdom. 



Now, it is clear from the above statement, that if the 

 perfect bird can be formed from the albumen and fat of 

 the egg, the plant containing starch and gluten must be 

 formed from matter containing the elements of starch and 

 gluten. The analogy between the chicken and the plant 

 does not cease with the formation of roots in the latter, 

 and the breaking of the shell of the former. If not fed 

 they die. Instinct and human care will support the bird. 

 The vegetable instinct (if I may be allowed the expres- 

 sion), of the roots and leaves of the plant* will provide for 

 it nourishment from the air and s>il. If this is deficient 

 in the soil, or it is desired to increase the size and weight 

 of the grain, then according to that deficiency or desire, it 

 must be supplied in the form of manure by the ingenuity 

 and wisdom of man. — C. Ii. Bree y Slowmarket. 



(To be continued.) 



* Carpenter's Popular Cyclopse-iia of Natural Science. 

 •Liebig, " Animal Chemistry," y. 40. 



Home Correspondence. 



Importance of tcriting Plain English. — Now that your 

 Paper, from its greater scope of objects, is likely to be- 

 come of more extended circulation, I venture to suggest to 

 you ami to your correspondents, that in their communica- 

 tions they should avoid provincial or local terms of 

 description, weight, measure, &c. Every locality lias, 

 some patois of its own, which is of course better under- 

 stood and much better liked there than elsewhere ; but in 

 a publication intended for general u*e, it is obviously 

 necessary that none but purely English terms should be 

 used. Only fancy what a hodge-podge the Gardeners* 

 Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette would be, if each 

 county alone were to send a specimen of its dialect — not 

 to mention that the Welch, Irish, and Highland Scotch, 

 might take it into their pens to address you in their tongue 

 also ! With reference to weights too, and BMHSNI both 

 superficial and solid, the use of local denominations renders 

 many useful communications only so many puzzles. In 

 the market notes of prices, we have in Ireland, for 

 instance, Wheat per bag of 20 stones, Oats per barrel of 

 33 stones, Barley per barrel of 3(5 stones in some places ; 

 while in others, the barrels are— of Barley 16 stones, of 

 Oats 20, &c. &c. Then we have the Scotch Bolls, Fir- 

 lots, &c. &c. ; the Welch Peggot, and the Straw-quart. 

 As to the weight of a stone, it varies as much in commerce 

 as it does in geology. There cannot, in fact, be any 

 better way of measuring Corn of all sorts than by the 

 regular avoirdupois scale ; a'l other modes should be 

 abolished, as has been the case with respect to the ad- 

 measurement of coal. As to the «* Muirland Gardener," 

 who can quote from Dr. Lindley good classical English 

 when he pleases, mv sentence on him is, that if he uses 

 anv more oi his reekie-peekie stuff, his horn spoon be taken 

 from him, and he be obliged to eat his stirabout with a 

 two-pronged fork for a month. — Woodend. 



Effect of Winds on Vegetation.— \n the Gardeners 

 Chronicle of last year, there were extracts of lectures 

 published pointmg out the analogies which exist between 

 the process of combustion and the process of digestion in, 

 an animal's stomach. I need not say how important the 

 analogies of nature are : they have often pioneered the way 

 to important discoveries in science. Witness some of Sir 

 H. Davy's discoveries. Following these analogies I have 

 long been impressed with the belief that a current of air 

 made to pass over vegetation promotes its vigour, in the 

 same manner as one passing into a fire hastens combustion. 

 Indeed, if plants appropriate a portion of the atmosphere 

 to their sustenance in the same manner as an animal or 

 the fire does, it is difficult to understand how currents of 

 air, of varying density, can pass over them without affecting 

 their health. When the wind blows we experience cur- 

 rents of denser volume than when the atmosphere is per- 

 fectly still. Plants, therefore, in the former case have 

 opportunities of appropriating a greater amount of the 

 pabulum thev derive from the atmosphere than they have 

 in the latter. These opinions, which I have long enter- 

 tained, I was desirous of seeing confirmed or confuted by 

 more extended observation, and I took the liberty of ad- 

 dressing a few queries to your paper upon the subject, in 

 the hope that they would elicit some remarks from your 

 readers respecting it. The instances of fertility to which 

 I referred are not in upland districts. We can find exposed 

 situations where the fertility is not impaired by want of 

 climate. There is one within the range of my eye at the 

 present moment ; it is an eminence in the midst of a fer- 

 tile plain, and, certainly, vegetation at this season is much 

 more luxuriant upon its top than it is at the base. The 

 shaking and stirring of plants by wind is an effect which 

 is obvious to every one, but we do not often enough reflect 

 that most of the operations of nature *re carried on in 

 secret, and that what we see ought only to be regarded as 

 an indication of what we do not see.— J. R. [Luxuriance 

 of vegetation on the summits of eminences greater than 

 that occurring in vales, must generally be owing to a dif- 

 ference in the nature of the soil. If our correspondent 

 would examine geologically the spot he refers to, we thin* 

 he would find that its greater fertility is owing to a differ- 

 ence of soil, owing to a change in the nature of the subsoil 

 on which it rests.] . . 



The Chief Fertilising Qualities of Bones.- -This is a 



