94 Manufacture of Put ash. 



induce me to institute experiments upon a larger scale, for 

 the purpose of ascertaining whether, by the ordinary 

 process, such as is employed in America, a sufficient quantity 

 of merchantable potash might not be obtained from tho 

 timber of this Colony to repay to the owners and occupiers 

 of land a large portion, if not the whole, of the cost of 

 clearing the land. 



My late lamented friend. Captain Stanley, had the charge 

 of those experiments ; and, had he been spared, I should 

 now have been able to have laid before the Society such 

 positive and definite results, as would have enabled every 

 individual to have formed his own judgment of the profit to 

 be derived from the ash which the timber the natural produce 

 of the land yields, compared with the cost of the labour and 

 apparatus necessary to reduce it to a marketable form. These, 

 however, it is not in my power to give in detail : all that I 

 am able to say is, that the results were so far satisfactory as 

 to indicate the existence of potash, to a greater or less 

 extent, in every species of timber upon which experiments 

 were made, the amount being in a rough way equivalent to 

 one-tenth of the weight of the ash produced ; — so that if 

 one tree would produce 20 lbs. of ashes to a ton of wood, 

 and another only 10 lbs., the former would give 2 lbs. of 

 potash to the ton, the latter only 1 lb. The experiments 

 were tried with the wood only of the tree ; the results, 

 therefore, were less favourable than they would have been 

 had the smaller branches and leaves of the trees been burned 

 together with the wood and bark. 



The following sketch of the best mode of proceeding may 

 perhaps be of service to those who are inclined to make the 

 experiment, with the view of reducing the cost of clearing 

 ground, and preparing it for cultivation. The timber should 

 be piled in large heaps, and burned in still weather if 

 possible ; the ashes, when the heaps are consumed, ought to 



