318 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



up of springs, and of rivers and streams which 

 are supported by springs. It is not, however, 

 only the water which is brought to the surface 

 of the earth, but also all that which the water 

 holds in solution. These substances are salts 

 of lime, and magnesia of potash and soda, and 

 indeed whatever the subsoil or deep strata of 

 the earth may contain. The water on reach- 

 ing the surface of the soil is evaporated and 

 leaves behind the mineral salts, which I will 

 here enumerate, viz : Lime, as air-slaked lime ; 

 magnesia, as air-slaked magnesia; phosphate 

 of lime, or bone earth ; sulphate of lime, or 

 plasier of Paris; carbonate of potash, and 

 soda, with silicate of potash and soda, and 

 also chloride of sodium or common salt. All 

 indispensable to the growth and production of 

 plants which are used for food. Pure rain 

 water as it falls would dissolve but a very 

 small proportion of some of these substances, 

 but when it becomes soaked into the earth it 

 there becomes strongly imbued with carbonic 

 acid from the decomposition of vegetable mat- 

 ter in the«oilj and thus acquires the property 

 of readily dissolving minerals on which before 

 it could have very little influence. 



I was first led to the consideration of the 

 above subjects by finding, on the re-examina- 

 tion of a soil which I analysed three or four 

 vears ago, a larger quantity of a particular 

 mineral substance than I at first found, as none 

 Lad been applied in the meantime. The 

 thing was difficult of explanation until I re- 

 membered the late long and protracted drought. 

 I then also remembered that in Zacatecas and 

 several other provinces in South America, soda 

 was obtained from the bottom of ponds, which 

 were dried in the dry, and again filled up in 

 the rainy season. As the above explanation 

 depended on the principles of natural philoso- 

 phy, I at once instituted several experiments 

 to prove its truth. 



Into a glass cylinder was placed a small 

 quantity of chloride of barium, in solution ; 

 this was then filled with a dry soil, and for a 

 long time exposed to the direct rays of the 

 gun on the surface. The soil on the surface 

 of the cylinder was now treated with sulphuric 

 acid, and gave a copious precipitate of sulphate 

 of baryta. 



The experiment was varied by substituting 

 cliloride of lime, sulphate of soda, and carbo- 

 nate of potash, for the chloride of barium, and 

 on the proper re- agents being applied in every 

 instance, the presence of those substances 

 were detected in large quantities on the sur- 

 face of the soil in the cylinder. Here then 

 was proof positive and direct, by plain experi- 

 ments in chemistry and natural philosophy, of 



the agency, the ultimate, beneficial agency, of 

 droughts. 



We see, therefore, in this, that even those 

 things which we look upon as evils, by Provi- 

 dence are blessings in disguise, and that we 

 should not murmur even when dry seasons 

 afflict us, for they too- are for our good. The 

 early and the later rain may produce at once 

 abundant crops, but- dry weather is also a be- 

 nificent dispensation of Providence in bringing 

 to the surface food for future crops, which 

 otherwise would be forever useless. Seasona- 

 ble weather is good for the present, but 

 droughts renew the storehouses of plants in 

 the soil, and furnish an abundant supply of 

 nutriment for future crops. 



James Higgins, 



• Maryland State Agricultural Chemist. 



TO PRESERVE WHEAT FROM WEEVIL. 



It is hardly necessary to say that as soon as pos- 

 sible after the wheat is dry alter harvest, it should 

 be threshed out, for if left in small shocks or hand 

 stacks, the weather, the weevil and the bird, will 

 soon bring down a very respectable crop to a very 

 short one. I therefore hasten it into large stacks 

 and barn, and thresh it out as soon as my other avo- 

 cations will permit me. The first year or two I 

 was much perplexed in sunning and keeping, or 

 trying to keep it free from weevil, by sunning, and 

 thought that this, (the weevil) if nothing else, 

 would prevent persons from attempting to grow 

 wheat to any extent. I have since adopted a plan 

 which has been attended with entire success. When 

 having my wheat sunned, I noticed that when a 

 barrel of wheat was left for any length of time 

 without sunning, the weevil commenced their rava- 

 ges on the wheat exposed to the atmosphere; the 

 top of the wheat for two or three inches would be 

 completely destroyed, and below that the wheat 

 completely free from weevil. Along the joints of 

 the staves and at the bottom also, would be weevil 

 eaten; in fact, where the atmosphere came to the 

 wheat through crack or crevice, the weevil hatched 

 out and permitted the atmosphere to penetrate still 

 deepei in. I also noticed that if I left a small bulk 

 in a barrel or box, that it was soon destroyed. I 

 therefore came to the conclusion that if I could 

 exclude the atmosphere from it I could save much 

 time in sunning. I therefore built me a small 

 framed wheat house and daubed it well on the in- 

 side with clay, floor and sides, cleaned out my 

 wheat and put it in at a door at the top of the 

 house; it did not quite fill the house, and I thrust 

 straw in the intervening space between roof and 

 whea.t, and packed it in closely. I was completely 

 successful, and found nothing to complain of but 

 the scaling off of the clay, and that it had to be 

 daubed every year. Finding wheat remunerative, 

 I extended my crop, and harvested in 1852 a crop 

 of one thousand bushels. There wa.) but slight 

 demand for it, as every one who attempted to raise 

 wheat was quite successful, and I was at some loss 

 how to store it away, but finally appropriated one- 

 third of my pick room to it, and adopted the fol- 

 lowing plan to exclude the atmosphere: I took up 

 the floor and filled between the sleepers with straw, 



