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XL. — Report on the Analysis of the Ashes of Plants. Bj J. 
Thomas Way, Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Agricul- 
tural College, Cirencester ; and G. H. Ogston, late assistant 
to Professor Graham of University College, London. 
[This research was conducted in the laboratory of the Agricultural 
College, Cirencester.] 
In laying before the Society this our first report, we deem it 
desirable to state shortly the objects of the investigation we have 
entered upon, and the advantages which are likely to accrue to 
agriculture from our labours. 
This plan will possess the additional recommendation of point- 
ing out the direction in which our attention has been turned, and 
will aflbrd opportunity to any member of this Society interested 
in the subject to suggest points of inquiry which Ave may have 
overlooked or inadequately considered. 
It has been long known that plants, besides the organic matter 
of which their bulk is composed, contain a small quantity of 
mineral matter, which remains as an ash when the vegetable part 
of the plant is burned. 
From the constant and universal existence of this mineral 
matter in all plants, it has been concluded that it is essential to 
their growth. 
And careful experiments havt; proved that where plants are 
denied access to sources of mineral food, although at the same 
time abundantly supplied with organic nourishment, they in- 
variably perish. 
Again, careful experiments have demonstrated the fact that 
whilst different plants, and even different parts of the same plant, 
afford when burned very varying proportions of ash — for the same 
parts of the same species of plants the quantity of ash does not 
vary to any extent, or at all events that the difference is by no 
means so great as that occurring in different plants or other 
parts of the same plant. Thus, for instance, in two samples of 
wheat the quantity of ash yielded by the straw, the grain, and the 
chaff" of each might be somewhat dissimilar, but the differences 
would be trifling as compared with those which would be found 
to exist between the ash of these parts in wheat and that of the 
corresponding parts of barley. 
Further, not only has the quantity of inorganic matter been 
found to be pretty constant in the same plant, but its quality or 
chemical composition, although widely varying indifferent plants, 
has been proved to be exceedingly similar for the same part of 
the same species of plants. 
The ashes of plants consist of several chemical substances; 
they contain silica, lime, magnesia, potash, soda, oxide of iron. 
