474 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



SO far as the pot culture of plants was concerned. So great appears 

 to have been the enthusiasm for charcoal about this time that we 

 find one gardener writing : * " Charcoal is the most astonishing article 

 to make use of for all purposes of cultivation, and especially for plants 

 under artificial treatment." " Every plant under my care has some 

 charcoal used about it." Fragments of charcoal left by the char- 

 coal burners were spread on the land and said to be of great benefit. 

 In certain districts they had already been in esteem as a manure for 

 turnips and for "fining" grassland-! It was pointed out that the quality 

 of charcoal is much improved by steeping it in liquid manure, and 

 that the lighter and more spongy kind is better for the purposes of 

 the cultivator. 



Some gardeners soon began to doubt if charcoal possessed all 

 the good qualities which others so enthusiastically claimed for it. 

 Good results I appear to have been obtained with such plants as 

 oranges, Ipomoea scabra, Gesnera, and Cacti ; but little success § seems 

 to have attended its use in cultivating various other kinds of plants. 

 The varying results which were obtained gave rise to a controversy 

 about the beneficial effects of charcoal on plant growth, which lasted 

 for a considerable time. 



Writing to this Journal in 1847, Cameron says he found charcoal 

 serviceable in the culture of native orchids, because " it keeps the 

 soil open and porous, and thereby prevents sourness and clamminess 

 after heavy rains in winter." Several theories of the action of char- 

 coal, alone and mixed with soil, on plant growth were put forward. 

 It had been pointed out by Liebig that charcoal absorbs carbon 

 dioxide and ammonia, and it was thought that these dissolved in 

 water and were thus assimilated by the plant. It was known that 

 the addition of charcoal to a soil containing animal manure reduced, 

 if it did not prevent, loss of ammonia. Charcoal was thought to have 

 a mechanical as well as a chemical effect. Some maintained that 

 charcoal itself was a plant food, and we read || that " until some experi- 

 mental evidence is produced to prove that plants cannot feed on 

 charcoal we shall beheve that they can." 



In 1849 a Hcence to make peat charcoal was granted to the " Irish 

 Amelioration Society," and the following year this substance sold 

 in London at 70s. a ton. The high prices which were demanded for 

 charred peat gave rise to many complaints amongst gardeners and 

 farmers. 



About 1851 Mr. James Cuthill, of Camberwell, writes : " I consider 

 charred peat in a melon ground to be as necessary as a telegraph to a 

 railroad. . . . The one is incomplete without the other." Evidence 1[ 



* Gardeners' Chronicle, 1843, p. 907. 



f Rural Economy of the Midland Counties (Marshall), and Journal Roy* Agr. 

 Society oj England, 1844, p. 507, and 1846, p. 539. 



X Proceedings of the Horticultural Society, 1843, p. 17. 

 § Gardeners' Chronicle, 1845, p. 188. 

 II Gardeners* Chronicle, 1843, p. 875. 

 ^ Gardeners' Chronicle, 1851. p. 751. 



