THE SOUTHE 



RN PLANTER. 



straw, hay, weeds, stalks, &c, which con- 

 sist of oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, 

 alkaline and earthy salts, all indispensable 

 manures, yet they are all sold from %ur 

 premises, except the weeds, which are 

 permitted to grow, come to maturity, sow 

 their seeds and waste. If you would 

 grow a wheat crop on your ground con- 

 tinuously, all that is necessary is to return 

 the straw. Thus you give to the land 

 every chemical ingredient from potash to 

 chlorine, that the ensuing crop requires, 

 as the straw and grain contain by analysis 

 precisely the same chemical ingredients — 

 and like produces like. 



Let every farmer accumulate his weeds, 

 straw, refuse stalks, leaves, muck, swamp 

 mud, sand clay, night soil, charcoal dust, 

 coal ashes, the excrements of his horses, 

 horned cattle, pigs and fowl, not neglect- 

 ing the liquid manures in his yard — under 

 cover — and when decomposed, and pro- 

 perly incorporated, he has a capital on 

 which to commence his agricultural oper- 

 ations that will carry him through every 

 difficulty. The liquids are, in nine cases 

 out of ten, allowed to run over the yard, 

 where it becomes putrid, loses its nitrogen, 

 which passes off in the shape of ammo- 

 nia — its salts are carried away by rain — 

 and nearly all its valuable properties are 

 evaporated by the atmosphere. Thus the 

 ammonia and alkaline salts, the most va- 

 luable portion of the manure, and without 

 which, neither plants nor seed can exist, 

 are lost. It is .the want of these sub- 

 stances that causes our lands to produce 

 miserable crops, and sometimes entire ste- 

 rility is the result. 



A farmer should on no account sell his 

 hay or straw, — if he does, his crops will 

 decrease — and finally his land will cease 

 to produce — his constant study should be 

 to increase his manure heaps, by every 

 means in his power, and to become ac- 

 quainted with his soil chemically, which 

 knowledge may soon be acquired. If 

 your soil requires potash, use ashes. Soda, 

 lime, and magnesia may be purchased — 

 ammonia and hartshorn are the same 

 thing. Nitric, muriatic and sulphuric 

 acids are extensively sold in commerce. 

 Phosphoric acid may likewise be pur- 



chased of the apothecary. All these sub- 

 stances are indispensable in a soil, to pro- 

 duce either the cerealia, cruciferous or 

 leguminous plants. Buy them, mix them 

 with three hundred times their weight of 

 mould, and apply them to your plants — 

 you will be astonished at the result. By 

 this means I was enabled to raise large 

 crops and heavy grains, long before the 

 works of Sprengel, Johnston, Liebig, &c, 

 were published. 



Bear one thing in mind ; all the ma- 

 nures you use to improve your soils, and 

 to become useful to plants as food, cannot 

 be of the least service to them except in 

 a liquid state — that is to say, if you pre- 

 sent your growing crops with bones, fish, 

 lime, potash, soda, muck, or compost from 

 your stable yards. They are all dissol- 

 ved by some process of nature before the 

 plant can absorb them. That is the rea- 

 son plants grow so much more rapidly, 

 when liquid manure is used upon them, 

 than when a dry composition is made use 

 of. 



Davy ineffectually tried the finest im- 

 palpable powder of charcoal upon plants, 

 in hopes they would imbibe it, but it was 

 fruitless. He found that no manure could 

 be taken up by the roots of plants, unless 

 water was present. The early Egyptian 

 philosophers falsely asserted that water 

 was the only food of plants. They pro- 

 bably came to that conclusion by noticing 

 the magic fertilizing properties of the wa- 

 ters of the Nile, when it overflows its 

 banks. 



Veit says, plants are nourished only by 

 sucking in the nutritious substance, in a 

 fluid or gaseous form, out of the earth or 

 air, by means of their roots or leaves. 

 Nourishing substances must therefore be 

 soluble in water ; and if a substance is thus 

 insoluble, it must first be dissolved by the 

 agency of some other substance, and in 

 its new combination becomes soluble in 

 water, before it is to be considered as nour- 

 ishment or manure. 



When chemists speak of a rich soil, 

 they mean one which contains a large 

 quantity of humus or organic remains. 



Humus, which according to Liebig, is 

 the decayed fibre of wood, is characteri- 



