THE AGRICULTURAL GAZETTE. 



235 



.77[ t up with harrow and roller is as before | 



- ° L indUensab'.e with those sorts which con- 



** ^nordeof iron ; because, to render this harm- 



•° C h, utton it must be converted, by the action of 



W T ^ u \ l0 _* „ u p f nrft beine ploughed under, into 



DW * duL winter, under the influence of the frost ; 

 ^Jefore ^nter is the general season for applying 



™ A then it is worked during the spring and summer, 

 it, »d then it ^ fa ht ^ thg fielJj f| should be 



^2 e J tl the first harrowing will then somewhat mix 

 fcwilfl the soil. (Tq be continuM 



woodenThoes. 



BY MARTIN DOYLE. 



Various have been the suggestions for improving the 

 Ma Mon of our labouring classes in Ireland and nurne- 

 nmthe dispensers of bounty, according to their mdivi- 

 itS notions of what might be most conducive to the end 

 nronosed Some benefactors begin with the head, and 

 !eck to act upon the intellectual portion of the body by 

 •(location, or agitation, as the case may be ; others, pre- 

 ferrine a middle course, and believing that hunger is a 

 ™ t impediment to the development of mental power, $0 

 directly to the stomach, advising " to fill the belly first." 



I n.vself have made some unsuccessful experiments 

 regarding the attic and middle stories of Pat's framework ; 

 bat on this occasion I shall try what may be done with 

 the bisement, and suggest an efficacious mode of keeping 

 his toes dry and warm, well knowing, from my own per- 

 sonal experience, the corresponding effects produced upon 



the upper extremity of the human column, by the good or 

 bad condition of the pedestal upon which it rests. 



I begin with childhood. It is absurd to affirm that 

 children will be rendered hardy by being kept barefooted ; 

 ibis is the way to mar and not to make the constitution. 

 Even before they can walk, their feet, in cold or moist 

 weather especially, should be cased in warm covering, to 

 preserve a sufficient circulation of blood in the lower ex- 

 tremities, which relieves feverishness in the time of denti- 

 tion. And when the little creatures can paddle about, it 

 is still more necessary to have their feet protected from 

 the moisture of the cabin-floor, or the water in the ditch 

 a! the door, in which they are perpetually puddling, when 

 they can escape from the mother's eye. 



Whenever I look at the purple legs and feet of a child, 



which perhaps has at the same time the hooping-cough, 



or the measles in some alarming stage, or is enduring the 



tortures of teething, and entreat the parents to get shoes 



for the sufferer, immediately I anticipate the answers that 



will be given to my question, Why do you keep the feet 



bare? The replies are of the following kind : — Shoes are 



too dear for the likes of them ; we think worse of the other 



children, or of ourselves, that must be out in the fields, or 



apon the road ; or that plaguy shoemaker, Leatherstitch, 



disappointed us last Sunday ; or the pair he made was too 



small ; or the child burned a hole in one of 'em. I often 



see the mother of a family dragging her feet along in a 



broken pair of old unmatched slippers, to wash a basket 



01 Foutoes in a stream, which flows in and out of her 



snoes ; or standing in wet mud by the side of a pool, as 



sue gashes some of the duds of the family, all the time 



coughing and wheezing ; it is plain that the want of shoes 



ia among her chief deficiencies. 



r.»n g rV ai J r ° f shoes cost 5s - 5 and i f she has such, she 

 cannot afford to wear them, except on Sundays; and 



bro^n , Decessit y' or economy, she plashes about in a 



other 'F* Pa,r> ° r 8 ° eS alt0 « ethcr barefooted on the 

 ■Ifirm; 8,x .. J 8 of the week, until she contracts some 



thaTh!? -n 6r : then > indeed ' she begins to suspect 

 wornvpr ! De f mj g ht h ave been brought on from having 

 thai rVnJ a- ° e8 ' or havin S been barefooted. She is 



fcave eaTneUh nCa ? able ° f that labour b ? which she ™& ht 

 the grave. priCC ° f a pair > or is sent prematurely to 



inchUdrer t s e8 ^ dinnumerable instancesof fatal diseases 

 Wf frequentl PeC,al - ,y5 fr ° m deficiencies in this particular, 

 ktions trn d i' "*%!? * re * an d P 00r females of town popu- 

 >ank to thf^' DS i Ut from one street ur lane t0 another, 



cased in th ** ^ mud ' with their feet wet ' y et en ' 



would-be I«H CaS L" off bombazin shoes of some lady, or 

 pocket and u ° ' S charitable without being out of 

 tnd we al so C ° U - D ° Ion S er ma ke use of them herself; 

 Wgar child 866 1Q ***? wi . ntr y season many a group of 

 °r snow-covp e Vfl andins iQ a S onv on a frozen pavement, 

 sh °e, or at thK gS ' without even tbe fragment of a 

 and that on* f* 4 St ' With only one ' t0 defend a sore foot ' 

 Aether « r «♦£ ? Und with a P iec e of twine to keep it 



» tuc r, or stuffed «-?»u .... F , .. ... r 



stuffed with straw to make it fit. 



feature W hn. " S ^ refuse a P air of old slippers to a poor 

 **»«. to all. l ™P lorin g 1 y asks you for them in God's 

 °nruecred ™a a S on,es of feet tender from journeying 

 ^es are ol ° F th ° rn y P ath * I and this, when we our- 

 bo °ta in a kn SC i l0US ° f P° sse 8sing at home shoes and 



*«* a time h n aV eTh P I 0r T7 f™*-*"* P ttr P ose « 

 **« one cnhu; uf , ? n asked for a sin g le °l d shoe > to 

 * ^ T l d *?i b i ed f0 L °t, the other being less delicate, 



dee P»J pained 1 1 W . llh an odd s,i PP er J a » d I have been 

 °t>Jectio P ns to 1^ lT^ S the "olicitation. Yet there are 

 tre attainable \vl eS for the P oor ' even where tb ey 

 pairi «g them I i a great deal of time is lost * n r e- 

 this * In the bus * lab ourer, male and female, knows 



! mon g his work Z 8P i nng season ' whp n a farmer goes out 

 tlQ » one of his best and ex P ects to find Andy Callag- 



toW that Andv w!c T," ,a J 80me important labour, he is 



y *«s obhged to stay at home to put a sole 



or a toe-piece to his shoes. Then he asks, as he sees two 

 of his required number of Potato -setters absent — Where 

 is Judy Kennessy ? " She went to town to-day to try if 

 she could make off a pair of shoes." Where the mis- 

 chief is Peg Hoollahan ? " She lent her pair of brogues 

 to her sister, who was obliged to go to the chapel to-day." 

 The wants, delays, and disappointments in this way are 

 innumerable, and of every-day occurrence. 



For attaining the object which I have at present in view, I 

 know no means more likely to succeed than the distribution 

 of the sabot, or wooden shoe, by landlords and employers of 

 labourers, among their working-people. In France, a cli- 

 mate in which there is far less need of such a comfort than in 

 that of ours, 9 out of 10 of the lower classes, both in town 

 and country, — petty shopkeepers, petty farmers, operatives 

 of all kinds, age, and young people of a higher grade, in 

 the fields, in the streets, at home, or going to school or 

 college, — one and all wear wooden shoes. 



Wooden shoes and brass money 1 there is a supposed 

 connexion between these ; and if I can show clearly that a 

 little brass money can buy large wooden shoes, and can 

 persuade any influential persons to introduce a practice 

 adopted by many millions of the French people, and 

 approved from long experience of its economy and com- 

 fort, I shall not have written this paper in vain. 



(To be continued.) 



I 



ON THE APPLICATION OF CHEMISTRY TO 



AGRICULTURE UPON RATIONAL 

 PRINCIPLES.— No. XIII. 



(Continued from p. 203.) 



I will take as practical illustrations, the experiments 

 related in your Paper of this day (Feb. 1 7), by two of your 

 most valuable Correspondents, and I feel confident that 

 these gentlemen will assist me in proving the correctness 

 or error of my views by further experiments. 



In the paper of Mr. Grey of Dilston, two series of 

 comparative experiments were performed with nitrate of 

 soda and gypsum— one upon Grass-land, the other upon 

 Potatoes. In the first experiment Mr. Grey procured 

 65 stone more Hay from land manured with 1 cwt. of 

 nitrate of soda over that treated with 10 bushels of gyp- 

 sum ; while the land treated with gypsum had no increase 

 over that where no manure was applied. It is impossible 

 to have a stronger confirmation of my views than this 

 experiment affords. "The Grass to which the nitrate 

 was applied," says Mr. Grey, "assumed in a few days a 

 darker colour than the other, rose quickly above it in height 

 came earlier into seed, and was sooner fit for cutting." 

 Here we have abundance of crops from abundance of 

 material ; and Mr. Grey, had he analysed his Hay, would 

 have found the alkali in its ashes. Gypsum, on the con- 

 trary, acts slowly, by absorbing ammonia from rain-water. 

 And the azotised part of the plant may during the grow- 

 ing of the Grass have received no addition whatever from 

 the gypsum, as it is clear it did not; gypsum requires 

 moisture and time before it acts as a manuring agent at 

 all ; whereas the soda enters at once into the fabric of the 

 plant, and it is of great use, particularly in Grass ; for 

 without it the cows which feed upon it could not secrete 



milk. 



In the experiment upon Potatoes Mr. Grey says—" I 

 applied the nitrate of soda to a row of Potatoes, at an 

 early period of their growth. The tops soon showed the 

 effect, and far outstripped the adjoining rows in growth. 

 But when the Potatoes were taken up, the produce of that 

 row was found to be less than the other, both in weight 

 and measure." Here we have food given to the top and 

 none to tuber ; and the vital action was expended in assi- 

 milating this food to the formation of branches and leaves. 

 Had Mr. Grey added rotten stable manure to the nitrate, 

 the result would have been different ; had he added urine, 

 more carbon would have been fixed in the tuber ; had he 

 supplied phosphates, more tuberous matter would have 

 been formed ; but he only supplied material for the top, 

 and therefore top alone was developed. 



The second experiment to which I will allude is that of 

 Mr. Lawes, who separated the phosphate of lime from the 

 gelatinous matter of bones, and performed a comparative 

 experiment upon Turnips, from which he draws the infer- 

 ence that the result, being in favour of the phosphate, 

 proved that the latter, and not the azotised principle, was 

 the fertilising property of bones. I am aware that Liebig is 

 of the same opinion, and I do not deny the fact. But the 

 experiment of Mr. Lawes does not prove it. In the first 

 place, the azotised matter was not presented to the plant 

 under favourable circumstances for the development of the 

 nitrogen. By heating and reducing to powder the gela- 

 tinous matter, a considerable proportion of the azote 

 would be dissipated, as carbonate of ammonia, and the 

 portion that remained as dried powder would resist the 

 agency of decomposition much longer than had it been 

 simply crushed and used, as bone-dust usually is. In the 

 second place, the experiment, I think, ought to have been 

 tried with an azotised crop, as Wheat or Beans. Gelatine 

 contains more nitrogen than any other element of animal 

 food ; but it has this characteristic difference, that, while 

 albumen, fibrin, or caseine are formed equally by plants 

 and animals, gelatine is the exclusive product of animal 

 organisation— it is the result of the metamorphosis of 

 albumen. But it is a curious fact, the knowledge of which 

 we owe to Liebig, that while gelatine is formed from the 

 blood, it is incapable of being reconverted into blood. It 

 differs also from albumen and fibrin, in containing no 



phosphorus or sulphur. 



Now these facts prove that as gelatine it can afford no 

 nourishment to the plant; but they do not oppose the 

 fact, that gelatine by decomposition, under favourable 

 circumstances, produces ammonia, which yields the nitro- 

 gen of the gluten in Wheat, or of the small proportion of 



albumen in Turnips. It is well known that bones will 

 putrefy, and that carbonate of ammonia is che result We 

 must not then reject as useless the gelatinous part of 

 bones, but endeavour to convert its elements into a form 

 by which it can be taken up by the plant. We must 

 expose it to the action of decomposing agents in the first 

 place, and then fix the volatile salt of ammonia, by sul- 

 phuric acid or other media. A question of great import- 

 ance in the nutritive physiology of plants here presents 

 itself, and as it bears materially upon the views which I 

 advocate, I will briefly allude to it : — 



In a late work — which I cannot help regretting he ever 

 wrote* — Liebig dwells much upon the notion that plants- 

 derive their ammonia, as well as their carbon, from the 

 atmosphere. The presence of ammonia in rain-water is 

 undoubted — it is one of the facts which Liebig has made 

 known to modern science. Now Liebig states that if you 

 supply a plant with the phosphates, you will enable it to 

 imbibe, through its leaves, more ammonia from the at- 

 mosphere ; in the same way as he contends that if you 

 supply the roots of a plant with azote, you enable it to 

 fix more carbon in its organism. I have in a previous 

 paper contended that the carbon of plants can only be in- 

 creased by the action of azote, in a quantity sufficient to 

 form albumen, with the imbibed nitrogen. I contend 

 that the same argument applies with equal force to the 

 phosphates, and that the absorption of phosphorus by the 

 roots of the plant can only fix as much ammonia from 

 the atmosphere as is necessary to produce albumen. 

 Now, the proportion of phosphorus in albumen is so- 

 minute, that chemists have not hitherto fixed it by any 

 figure, andthereforethe assumption that phosphorus taken 

 up by the roots, induces the plant to absorb ammonia from 

 the atmosphere, can only be correct in a very limited sense. 

 But the amount of phosphate of lime in the seeds of 

 plants is much greater than the phosphorus in the 

 albumen of the plant ; and as plants must be supplied with 

 the elements necessary for the formation of the different 

 parts of their organism, or the whole cannot be perfected, 

 and as the phosphates are the most frequently absent from 

 soils, and the most constantly exhausted from soils, we 

 have no difficulty whatever in accounting for their utility 

 as manures. If a plant absorbs by its leaves ammonia, 

 and the nitrogen of that ammonia does not meet with tbe 

 other corresponding elements of albumen, the carbon, the 

 hydrogen, the oxygen, the sulphur, and the phosphorus — 

 why, of course no albumen or gluten can be formed. But 

 tbe assumption that the phosphorus by any peculiar 

 virtue of its own has the power of fixing nitrogen and 

 forming albumen, is assigning to an element the function 

 of a perfect plant, which might, with equal propriety, be 

 claimed by the sulphur, the carbon, or the elements of 

 water. But I fear a continuation of this discussion will 

 not be sufficiently clear to the general reader, and 1 will 

 therefore proceed with my subject— C. R. Bree, Stow- 

 market. 



( To be continued.) 



Home Correspondence. 



Yew.— Caution to Farmers. — In reference to what is 

 stated at page 142 of the Agricultural Gazette, of 

 four bullocks being poisoned by eating Yew, I observe 

 that what I have invariably noticed respecting animals 

 being poisoned by it, holds good, viz., that the Yew had 

 been cut a few days before. Any animal, at least the 

 horse, ass, cow, and sheep, may and do eat the Yew with 

 perfect impunity from the living tree, but a very small 

 quantity, if it is in a withered state, I believe always kills. 

 I used to lire in a neighbourhood where there were many of 

 these trees, and, as a boy, was much puzzled to see all the 

 above-mentioned animals eating the twigs with much 

 relish (and I have at the present moment four smallish 

 shrubby trees which my young stock and sheep have fed 

 upon repeatedly this winter) and without harm ; and yet 

 every now and then some valuable cattle died suddenly, 

 and on examining the stomachs were evidently poisoned 

 by Yew. This made me reflect upon the subject, and I 

 found that, if withered, it is a deadly and quick poison ; 

 if green, perfectly harmless, and much relished at times. 

 1 should be glad to know if the above agrees with the 

 experience of your readers. I suspect that the same thing 

 holds good with regard to the common Laurel. All the 

 above animals eat it when green without hurt, unless 

 perhaps taken in very great quantity ; but a very small 

 piece in a withered state will kill a pig. I lost several 

 from it some years since, as was proved on dissection; 

 and believe others had died from it, without, however, the 

 cause being known. At all events, since the cuttings of 

 the Laurels have been carefully put away, as I always do 

 with Yew also, I have had no more sudden and unexplained 

 deaths.— Steaming Apparatus, p. 142.—" A Subscriber " 

 would find that no root pays better for steaming than the 

 Swede Turnip, for horses, cows, and pigs.— Swedes.— By 

 transplanting Swedes, you may secure a crop if the 

 weather be favourable, but it will not be near so heavy a 

 one as by sowing. Transplanting is only valuable when 

 either from your land not being in a fit state you cannot 

 sow them in time, or when you get a crop of the early 

 Potatoes or Vetches. In the latter case, however, a much 

 more valuable crop may generally be obtained by sowing 

 either white, or some of the late yellow Turnips, which 

 form in spring a most useful help either for sheep or 

 calves, as I am experiencing at the present moment, 

 having 40 ewes with their lambs doing very well upon out 

 a small quantity of land sowed after early Potatoes ana 

 Vetches; and I have also six cows soiled upon taw, 

 giving butter as sweet as if upon meadow &*»*' 

 complaints about Turnips tainting milk W*"*^ 

 obv^a^edbyym^ 



* Chemical LetterTto a Friend. 



