-£^?rfii 
BOTANICAL FRAGMENTS. 
may induce cultivators to pay a little more attention to a substance which most persons endeavour to 
get rid of as a black nuisance, actually paying the chimney-sweeper for taking that which, if 
judiciously applied, would not only fertilize the ground, but repel, if not destroy, many of the insects 
and eryptogamous plants that prey upon and injure crops of great value. 
Coal soot contains a very large proportion of carbon or charcoal, in a state of extremely minute 
division, combined with considerable quantities of the two neutral salts of ammonia — namely, the 
sulphate, whereby also sulphuric acid is conveyed to the soil ; and the hydro-chlorate, more familiarly 
known as the muriate : that is, sal ammoniac. 
They who possess the early published parts of the Royal Agricultural Society's Journal, can refer to 
and peruse the instructive article by Mr. Morton, on the use of soot at Stinchcomb farm, in Gloucester- 
shire, long occupied by Mr. Dimmeny, who purchased vast quantities of soot, and depended upon it to 
a very great degree, as a staple manure for potatoes, wheat, and grass pasture. If the latter, and 
indeed, the garden lawn, the orchard, or paddock, be infested with mosses, a careful top-dressing of 
coal soot will act not only as a specific remedy, but also as a genuine fertilizer. 
Again, it is recorded in the work alluded to, that in July 1844, Lord Essex produced two specimens 
of turnips raised by him in different ways, during that most pinching season. One of them was very 
luxuriant : the seeds were sown in drill, with a small quantity of charcoal dust : a second — not a third 
of the height — was otherwise treated ; and it was stated that a third parcel of seed, sown alone, failed 
to germinate at all, until some rain fell. I happened to see these specimens. To the agency of 
charcoal — however that substance, insoluble in water, might act — was ascribed the luxuriance of the 
first specimen. The absorption of ammoniacal gas by charcoal has been looked to as the exciting cause 
of such vegetative activity ; and if so, then soot, which abounds with charcoal, impregnated with 
soluble ammoniacal salts, ought, upon chemical principles, to be found a valuable adjunct to the dung- 
hill. When treated with hot water coal soot yields a brown, bitter extract, identical perhaps with a 
peculiar bitter principle, styled asboline by Braconnot, in his analysis of wood soot. If so, we may 
regard it as an alkaloid, held in solution by the sulphuric acid developed during combustion of the 
sulphur contained in mineral coals. This brown fluid, amply diluted with soft water, is one of the best 
forms of liquid manure that can be used for Pine Apples, and other plants that are proved to be 
benefited by such applications. Great caution, however, must be entertained whenever solutions of 
saline substances are resorted to, — and such are soot, guano (rich in sulphate, muriate, and oxalate of 
ammonia), Potter's guano, &c. 
Davy and other writers have recommended the scattering of coal soot over the surface of the soil. 
This practice will answer well on mossy grass land ; but as a manure for the garden or field it would 
be better to renew spit dung or compost heaps, by mixing it with either, before dunging the land, for 
thereby the ammonia lost during the heat of active fermentation, would be restored in the condition of 
a more durable neutral salt. 
BOTANICAL FRAGMENTS. 
Chlorosis. — Every day's experience shows that plants grown without the influence of light, instead 
of presenting their usual green hue, assume a white or yellowish aspect, due to the imperfect formation of 
chlorophyll. As the tissues of such plants are less compact, and the flavour often more delicate, this 
effect is frequently produced artificially, and is then known by the name of blanching. Plants, how- 
ever, when fully exposed to light, but placed in a situation or under circumstances unfavourable to 
healthy growth, often exhibit a modification of the same appearance ; and individuals, under any 
treatment, from some original injury to the embryo, or some natural weakness of constitution, 
never acquire a healthy aspect. It is scarcely possible to examine a field of barley or beans without 
finding some such individuals ; and they frequently occur in gardens. Other seedlings of the same 
species, which have been subjected to precisely the same treatment, flourish uniformly from the first, 
while these never acquire a green tinge, and at length perish. Indeed, when plants exhibit this pallid 
hue for any marked length of time, from then' first appearance above the surface of the soil, whether 
seedlings or shoots from roots of the preceding year, they very rarely become healthy. Doubtless, 
in many cases, ungenial weather and a damp soil have originated the evil ; but better treatment — 
except the disease be of comparatively recent origin — will seldom be effectual. It has been recom- 
mended to water them with a weak solution of sulphate of iron, but we do not know with what 
effect. Frequently, however, the disease is neither constitutional, nor of very early origin, but 
entirely dependent on cold, wet, cloudy weather, such as is often prevalent in this country late in the 
m 
%. 
?^gggg f 
