Wood.] 6 Jan, 6, 
less than three-quarters of a century, which had for years ceased to bear, 
or at best only now and then brought forth a smail knotty fruit unfit 
for usc. The tree had been dying branch by branch every year, until re- 
duced almost to the original stem, with a few branches above. This tree 
appeared in the warm season to have renewed its youth. It was richly 
loaded with flowers and fruit, and gave hopes of an abundant product in 
the Autumn. It suffered, however, like the others from the storm ; very 
few of the blossoms or young fruit remaining still attached. One of these 
went on to full size; and the handsome Newtown pippen which I now 
exhibit to the members as the sole relict of the storm, shows what the 
product might have been had not the hail interfered. 
I consider that the efficiency of potassa in the revival of fruit trees has 
been satisfactorily demonstrated by the foregoing experiments, at least in 
relation to the peach and apple trees, and I may add also the pear and 
quince, several of which were treated in the same way and with similar 
results. 
As to the securing of the plum and other fruits against the curculio, 
J think it highly probable that this also may be done by ashes, on the 
principle already stated, but I can adduce no proof of the fact; for, in 
the only instance in which ashes were applied to a plum, though the tree 
showed its effects by a copious growth of leaves and flowers, and even of 
young fruit; yet the destruction of these by the hail storm prevented the 
completion of the experiment ; and for the determination of this point, 
which is an important one, we shall have to wait another year. 
But, important as I consider the discovery of the reviving power of 
potassa in the case of failing fruit trees, I attach much greater value 
to its influence in another direction, which has suggested itself in the 
prosecution of the foregoing experiments. It is an unfortunate fact, 
with which the farmers of my own country neighbourhood are unhap- 
pily but too familiar, that certain cereal crops, especially that of wheat, 
have for some years failed to be remunerative. Where wheat formerly 
yielded 20 bushels or more to the acre, it can now seldom be made to 
produce more than 12 or 15 bushels. 
Tn examining into the relative proportion of potassa contained in the 
ashes of different plants, I was surprised to find that, while the ashes of 
the common fire wood, as the oak, maple, &c., contain from about 2 to 
4 parts in 1000, the wheat stalk yields 47 parts. Now, while this fact 
shows the extraordinary demand of growing wheat for potassa, it sug- 
gests also that the failure of this crop of late may be owing to the same 
deficiency of the salts of potassa in the soil which has caused the premature 
destruction of the peach; and, though the manure employed in the culti- 
vation of wheat contains potassa, yet it does not yield as much of this al- 
kali as the plant requires for its greatest productiveness ; few of the 
vegetables that unite in the constitution of manure containing so large a 
proportion as wheat. To meet this demand of wheat, I propose to employ 
unleached ashes in the cultivation of this cereal. Leached ashes, though 
* containing but a small proportion of potassa, and that chiefly in the form 
