182 
THE SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
From the Philadelphia Saturday Couriei. 
TUe Analysis of Soils. 
The samples of soils being taken in the man- 
ner described in the last number. Science pro- 
ceeded to show Practice the modes of analyz- 
ing them— that is, ol dividing their diflerentsub- 
stances from each other, and showing the quan- 
tities of each, so that a correct judgment may 
be formed from these proportions oi the fertility' 
of the soil. 
To make a rough and very simple analysis, 
which may be done at any time, and which will 
enable you hastily to form a tolerably good 
opinion of a soil, you may adopt the following 
simple process : 
Take a handful or two ol the soil to be judg- 
ed of, and dry it before the fire until it is about 
as dry as soil is upon the surface of the ground 
in summer, where exposed to the sun — that is, 
until it feels quite dry to the touch; immediate- 
ly after it is thus far dried remove it from the 
fire. Rub it through the fingers to pulverize it. 
Weigh 4 ounces of this soil and put it on a 
plate in an oven or over a gentle fire — having 
dropped among it some shavings or bits of pa- 
per, keep stirring it till the paper or shavings 
just begin to turn brown — it may take from 
half an hour to an hour. You must not allow 
it to burn at all, your object being merely to ex- 
pel all water or moisture without burning it. 
When thus perfectly dry weigh it, and what is 
lost will be the moisture which the soil is capa- 
ble of retaining after it appears perfectly dry to 
the touch. A very good soil will retain an 
eighth of its weight, and would consequently 
lose half an ounce of the above four ounces — 
poor, sandv soils will not lose more than two or 
three per cent. 
The first process tests the absorbent powers 
of the soil, which is one considerable indication 
of fertility in all cases, except in very stiff, clay 
lands — a stiff clay is frequently as retentive ol 
moisture as a fine loamy mould, and must be 
judged of; in every other case it may be taken 
as a rule that the greater the absorbent powers 
of a soil the better is its quality for agricultu- 
ral purposes. 
The remaining soil you throw on an iron 
plate or shovel which heat red hot, and let the 
soil burn on it for fifteen or twenty minutes. 
The object is to burn out the organic matter, ei- 
ther decayed and mixed with the soil, or unde- 
cayed in the form of wooden fibre, roots, &c. 
After the soil is well burnt weigh it. It will 
have lost considerable weight : nearly all the 
loss is organic matter. In a fine soil this loss 
will amount to from the quarter to the half ol 
an ounce in the four ounces. In poor soils the 
loss will sometimes not be more than one or two 
parts in an hundred. 
Although this process gives you the amount 
of matter destructible by heat, which is nearly 
all vegetable matter, yet care must be taken in 
examining the soil with the eye to see that it is 
not a peaty soil, or very full of rooty fibre; as 
in these cases the vegetable matter is not in a 
state useful to fertility, being undecomposed - 
and will require time, expense and culture to 
bring such vegetable matter into humus. Ex- 
cept in the case of very rooty or peaty soils, 
burning in this way will give the operator a fair 
estimate of the amount of organic matter. 
Now, if we knew the proportions of sand and 
clay in what is left, we should get pretty near 
the facts of the soil under analysis. 
The easiest way to do this is to throw the re- 
mainder of the lour ounces under experiment, 
into some rain water, and slir it well with a 
spoon or pestle, after letting it stand a while to 
soften. The fine clay will settle at the .bottom. 
Pour off the muddy water, taking care to pour 
off no sand. Throw in some more water on 
the sand, stir it well up, and pour off the mud- 
dy water again. If necessary, give the sand 
another water; our object being to get rid of 
the clay and leave nothing but the sand. We 
wish, however, to preserve all the sand. Throw 
the sand on the iron plate and bake off all the 
moisture. When perfectly dry weigh the sand. 
Your lour ounces will have dwindled down to 
about one or two oz. ; part of the loss you dried 
off, and the deficiency may be set down as the 
clay or the soil which you have washed away. 
This simple, ver> simple method will give 
you an excellent idea of soils. True, it is very 
rough, and the experienced chemist would not 
adopt it — but it gives you three principal items 
in a soil, viz: the clay, the sand, and the or- 
ganic matter; it is true itdoesnot enable him to 
find the lime, but that you can easily supply bv 
attention to the next method of analysis. It 
gives you the absorbent powers of the soil, by 
which you may form an idea of the condition 
of the vegetable matter in it. Thus, if a loamy 
soil loses an eighth of its weight in the process 
of becoming really, alter it is apparently dry, 
you must conclude that its vegetable matter is 
mostly converted into humus, which is highly 
absorbent and retentive of moisture. If, on the 
other hand, a loamy soil which will show a 
great loss by burning, shows only slight absorb- 
ent qualities, it proves, the vegetable matter is 
not decomposed, and therefore not so valuable. 
Suppose we take a couple of handfuls ol the 
soil in your clover field, Here it is. It is not 
stiffand clayey, nor yet is it loose and sandy. It 
may be considered a stiff loam. There are no 
fibres in it, except a few trifling grass roots, 
which are nothing. We dry it, and weigh 4 
ounces. Set that over the fire, or the oven top, 
and throw two or three scraps of while paper 
amongst it; stir it about until those bits of pa- 
per begin to brown; weigh it now; it weighs 
3§ ounces. We writedown, “ water of absorp 
tion, § ounce.” Throw the ounces on the 
shovel and make it red hot: we therefore write, 
“vegetable matter apparently decomposed J 
ounce” — (we say “apparently decomposed,” 
because we cannot see any appearance of un- 
decomposed fibre in the soil except a grass root 
or so.) Take the 3 ounces and throw into the 
mortar with some soft water. Gently rub it 
with the pestle and let it stand awhile to steep. 
Rub it up and gently pour off the muddy water. 
Wash the sand again and again. There, now 
throw the sand remaining upon the shovel. 
Burn it over the fire to get rid of the moisture. 
Weigh it— it w’eighs one ounce. There is, 
therefore, two ounces for clay and loss. 
We therefore write out our report. Four 
ounces of the “clover field” soil, by rough ana- 
lysis, gave, water of absorption, J or I2i per 
cent., or 5 ounce; vegetable matter, principally 
decomposed, J or 12J per cent., or J ounce; 
sand and silicious particles, J or 25 perct., or 1 
ounce; clay and loss, J or 50 per cent., or 2 
ounces— 4 ounces. 
From such an analysis every person who is 
accustomed to make or even to read analyses 
of soils, will at once get the principal features of 
his soil, most of the essential particulars, ex- 
cept the lime, which may be sought for by the 
following experiment, if thought necessary; 
Take a couple of ounces of the same soil, 
dry it thoroughly, rub it to a fine powder in the 
mortar, grinding it as fine as dust; over this 
dry powder pour diluted muriatic acid, say hall 
acid and halt rain water; if it contains lime 
there will be a considerable effervescence. 
Stir it at intervals, and add more diluted acid 
until there is no effervescence produced; let it 
stand until the next day, when, if calcareous or 
limy matter is present it w'ill have been dissolv- 
ed ; add more diluted acid and stir it well up; 
let it stand till the liquor is quite clear, and 
then pour it off; add more pure water; stir, al- 
low to clear, and likewise pour off ; by this pro- 
cess the lime will be got rid ol. You then drain 
the earth through a piece of blotting paper, and 
dry on a-hot.shovel or iron plate. When tho- 
roughly dry weigh it, and the loss will show 
the amount of lime in the soil, which ranges, 
from the smallest possible per centage up to 35 
or 40 per cent, of the entire soil, according as 
the soil is calcareous or not. 
If, on applying the diluted muriatic acid to 
the soil, no effervescence takes place, you need 
not pursue the remainder of the experiment, as 
it is evident there is no lime. 
It the two ounces should lose i of an ounce 
of lime, w’hich would amount to 13j per cent, 
of the whole, you may deduct 12^ per cent, 
from the “clay and loss” of the former experi- 
ment, and add the lime to the catalogue. 
The best way to practice this method is, in 
your leisure to fill a few bottles with various 
kinds of soil that you know — say a very good 
soil, a middling soil, and a bad soil — a clay, a 
loam, and a sand; ana^ze them each once or 
twice over and keep the results by you. When 
you want to analyze a soil that you don’t know, 
you can judge its results by these that you are 
intimate with. Besides, the experiments will 
give you practice and profiniency. 
The mode is so extremely simple that any 
person may adopt it, even if his apparatus is of 
the most scanty and imperlect kind. It re- 
quires nothing but common patience, ordinary 
attention, and a desire to learn. It is, moreo- 
ver, extremely useful for practical purposes. 
From the Horticulturist. 
The Best FiveWiutei* Pears. 
Mr. Downing: — You ask me for the results 
of my experience as to what I consider “the 
best Jive varieties oj winter Pears.'’ I comply at 
the spur of the moment. I regret that at the 
present lime my engagements will only permit 
of devoting the passing hour to the subject, and 
will necessarily compel me to pass more hastily 
over it than I could wish, for one of its impor- 
tance. The list, how ever, is made up from ma- 
ny years’ experience v ith the varieties named; 
of which I can confidently recommend as 
worthy of extensive cultivation. For more 
particular descriptions than will be found in the 
following remarks, reference may be had to the 
various Pomological w’orksoflhe day. I com- 
mence v.'ith that “ Prince of Pears,” the 
1. Beurre d’Arembero. — This vaiieiyhas, 
for the last ten years, never failed toyieldmean 
abundant crop ol its delicious Iruit. It has of- 
ten been exhibited at the rooms of the Massa- 
chusetts Horticultural Society, always receiv- 
ing the unqualified approbation of our most ex- 
perienced amateurs and cultivators. Possess- 
ing all the characteristics of a first-rate table 
pear, it retains at maturity, its flavor and cham- 
pagne sprighlliness, with all the freshness of a 
specimen just plucked from the tree. The fo- 
liage and fruit adhere with a remarkable tena- 
city, resisting the frosts and gales of autumn 
better than those ot most other varieties. Asa 
constant, prolific, hardy sort, the d’Aremberg is 
unsurpassed, and whether on the pear or quince 
stock, proves admirably adapted to this climate. 
It keeps as well as a Russet apple, and requires 
no further care than to gather in a dry day, and 
pack at once from the air, in close boxes or bar- 
rels — with no other precaution, it has been 
found in a state ol perlect preservation in the 
month of January. Season, December to Feb- 
ruary. The Beurre d’Aremberg is a fruit ea- 
sily excited to maturity, and may be brought 
into eating in November, or retarded until 
March. 
2. Winter Nelis. — This is classed second 
in my list, not from any inferiority to the first 
named variety, lor, in tact, as a sweet, melting 
wine pear, it has no equal. Connoisseurs gen- 
erally prefer the brisk, vinous juice ol the d’A- 
remberg, but some of our good judges esteem 
the Nclis above all others of the season. 
The growth of the tree is not strong, but more 
so on the quince, to which it seems well adapt- 
ed ; it is hardy and thrilty in rich soils, other- 
wise the shoots are more stinted and feeble than 
is usual with most other sorts. To obtain spe- 
cimens above medium size, requires high culti- 
vation and some thinning ol the fruit. Keeps 
and ripens well, and bears good crops. Sea- 
son, November to January. 
3. CoLDJUBiA.— This excellent native variety 
has proved with me a fruit more uniformly 
smooth, perfect in sl.ape, and free from the de- 
predations of insects, than almost any other 
sort. The tree is thrifty and hardy, not prolific 
when young, bins sreaieT hearer on mature 
