THE SOUTHERN PLAN T<E R . 



233 



cision, but suppose for a small plant, a spoonful 

 might suffice, and when nearly grown a gill ; 

 and perhaps three or four applications during 

 the season would be abundant. Cabbage should 

 never be planted more than one year on the 



same ground — they are equally good for men, 

 cows, sheep, or hogs j and perhaps also for 

 horses. 



Za. Drummond. 

 Amherst County, August, 1843. 



TESTS OF THE TEXTURE OF SOILS. 



One of the best methods of ascertaining the 

 capability of any soil to take up and retain mois- 

 ture, is that described by Mr. C. Johnson, for 

 which purpose he employs the apparatus referred 

 to above. 



a, is a small lamp ; b } a stool, with a hole in 

 the seat for receiving c, a shallow tin vessel, 

 closely covered, but having a pipe, d, for the es- 

 cape of steam ; h is a pair of accurate scales, 

 such as are used by apothecaries and goldsmiths. 

 In order to employ this apparatus, put a small 

 quantity of the soil to be tried upon the top of 

 the tin vessel, in which water is kept briskly 

 boiling for about half an hour, so as to thorough- 

 ly dry the soil by expelling its moisture. Take 

 ten grains accurately weighed of this dried soil, 

 and add to it, by means of a quill, a drop or two 

 of pure water ; if distilled water can be had so 

 much the better. Weigh the whole a second 

 time, which will now be a few grains above ten. 

 Take out the weight of the water from the 

 scale, leaving in the weights of the dried soil, 

 and suspend the beam, so that the scale e may 

 rest on the lid of the tin vessel, the water in 

 which is still kept boiling; then with a stop 

 watch note the exact time which the added wa- 

 ter takes to evaporate, as will be shown by the 

 beam of the balance becoming level. Mr. John- 

 son found that soils requiring less than twenty- 

 five, or more than fifty minutes, to evaporate the 

 added water, and bring the balance to a level, 

 were always proportionally unproductive ; the 

 first from having too much flinty sand, and con- 

 Vol. III.— 30 



seqeuntly too few interstices to allow the wate 1 

 to escape. 



Rich soil treated in this way, required thirty- 

 two minutes to bring the fjeam to a level ; chalk, 

 twenty-nine minutes; poor flinty soil, twenty- 

 three minutes ; and gypsum only eighteen mi- 

 nutes. 



A very fertile soil from Ormiston, Hadding- 

 tonshire, containing, in 1000 parts, more than 

 half of finely-divided materials, among which 

 were eleven parts of limestone soil, and nine 

 parts of vegetable principles, when dried in a 

 similar way, gained eighteen grains in an hour, 

 by exposure to moisNair, at the heat of sixty- 

 eight degrees Fahrenheit; while 1000 parts of 

 a barren soil, from Bagsh^t Heath, gained only 

 three grains in the same time. 



Mr. Johnson farther found that one hundred 

 parts of burnt, clay, when exposed in a dry state 

 for three hours to air saturated with moisture at 

 sixty-eight degrees, look up twenty-nine parts 

 of water ; that gypsum, in similar circum- 

 stances, took up Only nine parts, and chalk only 

 four parts. 



RICHMOND BUTTER. 



We grieve exceedingly to hear that our re- 

 marks in the August Number, upon the charac- 

 ter of the butter in the Richmond market, should 

 have excited the ire of some of our female 

 friends ; perhaps they consider their characters as 



