THE SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
99 
tolerably heavy crop ot red top grass, generally 
free from any mixture. When secured in good 
order for hay, it has every appearance of first 
rate winter fodder. Yet our cattle Aidll not eat 
it unless nearly driven to the borders of starva- 
tion. Again, there is a similar kind of gra.ss, 
only more wirey and jointed, growing upon our 
gneiss and gi anite leches, and frequently quite a 
thick growth of it, where the soil is but two or 
three inches in depth; it is red top grass, but 
from its small and narrow leaf and wirey ap- 
pearance, but few persons would suppose that it 
wms the same kind of grass that was growing 
within six feet of it, where the soil was deeper. 
The grass on the river bank, from the commi- 
nuted and fine particles of quartz, feldspar and 
mica, takes on and in such a quantity of silica, 
that it is hard and difficult to masticate, and pro- 
bably it is not so nutritious as if grown where 
there was more vegetable matter in the soil. — 
That upon the ledges, the roots of the grass rest 
directly upon the rock and decompose it; this 
contains more silica, and is harder than that up- 
on the river bank. This establishes my first 
proposition. 
There are other situations where all the ne- 
cessary constituents for a perfect developement 
appear to be rightly balanced. With such spots 
all our farmers are familiar. They are found 
wherever the wash from rocky or gravelly roads 
is carried over grass lands, the wheels of car- 
riages and travel on the road are continually 
grinding to powder the component parts of 
stones and rocks in the road, which renders their 
salts soluble. This with the animal and vege- 
table matters are sprayed over the ground by 
every heavy shower; the result is a heavy crop 
of grass. Herdsgrass in such places is fre- 
quently found four or five feet in height, stand- 
ing perfectly erect till mowing time, and afford- 
ing palatable and nutritious food for cattle. — 
This I offer to sustain my second proposition. 
My third was, that there were others, where 
there was an absolute deficiency of potash and 
silica, but an abundance of nutritious matter. 
Where a piece of land has the wash of a barn, 
the grass starts early in the spring, and bids fair 
to yield a great growth of grass; but for want of 
stamina it frequently falls or lodges before it 
heads out, and when made into hay it Avill 
weigh light according to its bulk: much of this 
is pccasioned by a deficienc}'- ol silex. The 
same results are frequently exhibited on re- 
claimed meadows, where there is a great 
amount of decaying vegetable matter. A com- 
post of manure, with a large quantity of ashes 
and fine sand, is the rich dre.ssing for such spots. 
When the primitive growth of wood on our 
new lands is lelled, and burnt upon the ground, 
and there is sometimes two or three hundred 
cords per acre, and none of the ashes carried 
off, we almost invariably obtain a heavy crop 
of wheat or rye. I have known of more than 
50 bushels of wheat or 60 bushels of rye per 
acre on such lands. The intense heat shivers 
up the rocks; the great amount of alkali readi- 
ly dissolve the disintegrated rock, and, in its so- 
luble state, it forms a^stiff stalk, with a hard, 
thick glaze upon the straw, which prevents the 
rupturing of the sap vessels; the sap, instead 
of oozing out upon the stalk and rusting, is car- 
ried to the head of the grain and fills it ndth a 
heavy, plump kernel. The crops of grass that 
follow for several years correspond with the 
grain crops, but ultimately the vegetable matter 
is used up, and nearly all the soluble potash is 
used up — so that the farmer must resort to the 
plough, and manure to get a fair crop again. 
Every practical farmer who has attempted to 
raise wheat on highly manured land that has 
been long cultivated, knows that it is liable to 
lodge, and very frequently rust or mildew. — 
The.se two evils might, I think, be nearly reme- 
died by the application of the right amount of 
ashes— if that ?-igkt amount could be ascertained 
and obtained by the farmer. As to the amount, 
he need not fear of getting on too much, if he 
will reflect how much is left upon an acre of 
burnt land, where two or three hundred cords of 
hard wood is converted to ashes; but in all pro- 
bability a very much less amount would answer. 
I conceive there is but little difficulty in any or 
every farmer’s obtaining his supply, by plough- 
ing up a small patch of sandy or gj’av'elly sward 
land and letting the furrows remain till dry, then 
commence a fire, with a small quantity of wood, 
and gradually pile on the sods, and very large 
heaps may be thus converted tn ashes. The 
vegetable matter would be burnt, the particles 
of quartz, feldspar and mica would he broken 
and shivered thereb)q rendered soluble, and af- 
ford those very salts so essential to a good 
growth of grain. After the mass had become 
cool enough to be removed it should be put un- 
der cover, to be applied to his wheat ground, af- 
ter being ploughed in the spring. In all proba- 
bilit}^ fifteen or twenty cartloads would have the 
desired effect, and the good effects would also be 
felt for several years by the succeeding crops. 
Frequently promising crops of wheat are al- 
most entirely destroyed % rust. On highly ma- 
nured lands, if there happens to be a day or two 
of warm, steam^q good corn wmather, in July 
or August, at about the time wheat is in the 
milk, the rush of sap is so great, that if it do not 
produce apoplexy, it does that which is nearly 
as bad— it ruptures the tender and inefficient 
coating in the stalk; the sap vessels burst; the 
sap exudes, and forms a coat of rust, and the 
crop is nearly ruined. In some of the agricul- 
tural papers the last year, I read an account that 
wheat never rus®fi where it was sowed upon 
an old coal heath, and that grass and other crops 
always succeeded well and were luxuriant. I 
think this was attributed to the remains of the 
charcoal; but perhaps a part might be justly at- 
tributed to some other cause — to its furnishing a 
thicker coat of glaze to the grain, and prevent- 
ing the rupturing ol sap vessels. 
I might cite a great many more facts in addi- 
tion, to satisfy any one of the benefit of adding 
to our cultivated soils, potash in a more .soluble 
state than we find it, as locked up in sand, gra- 
vel, stones or rock. You will find some of them 
in Mr. Colman’s 4th Report, viz; Mr. Hagger- 
ton’s compost of peat and barilla; Mr. Jarvis’ 
account of glass factory manure; Mr. Whip- 
ple’s statements in regard to the value of salt- 
petre or nitre — that being about one half potash; 
102 lbs. of nitre contains as much pota.sh as 79 
lbs. of pot or pearlash of commerce, ble ap- 
plies about 105 lbs. to the acre. 
But ashes are also useful in agriculture for 
neutralizing acidity of soils, and tor the forma- 
tion of nitre or saltpetre for agricultural pur- 
poses. 
In the 6th number, (June, 1842,) of the Far- 
mer’s Monthly Visitor, there is taken from the 
“Alban}^ Cultivator,” an article or review of 
Dr. Dana’s Muck Manual. In this article there 
is a statement made by the Doctor, and another 
by the reviewer, which I think are calculated to 
lead to erroneous conclusions. The Doctor 
says, his first principle in agricultural chemis- 
try is “one rock and consequently one soil;” — 
from this he lays down his second principle, 
“that rocks do not affect the vegetation that co- 
vers them.” The reviewer says, that “rocks 
certainly exert a powerful influence on the soil 
that covers them in many cases,” but this he 
says, “is owing to their physical condition, and 
not to their chemical constitution.” Now, I 
think, to the mind of every farmer, the plain 
English of the above would be this; all soils are 
derived from rocks; all rocks are chemically 
the same; ergo, the chemical constituents ot 
rocks never affect vegetation. 
For the sake of many of our farmers, I wish 
the above was true; but the weak and sickly ap- 
pearance, and light and short crops of corn, we 
every year see growing upon soils containing 
sulphate of iron — iron pyrites, or what farmers 
more commonly call brunstone rocks, proves 
the above untrue. There are six thousand of 
acres of land in this State, that once yielded 
heavy crops of com, that now with a dressing 
of fifteen or twenty loads of manure will not 
give more than the same number of bushels of 
corn, and without manure it would not yield 
five bushels per acre; and this decrease in the 
amount of crop is almost wholly in consequence 
of sulphurous or sulphuric acid in the soil, de- 
rived from the disintegration of rocks contain- 
ing sulphur and iron. Hundreds of our farm- 
ers have dug solid and heavy rocks from the 
soil, and laid them into wall, and soon the oxy- 
gen of the air and water combines with the iron, 
and it is decompo.sed and converted to an oxide 
or rust; this sets the sulphur free, and that com- 
bines with oxygen and forms sulphurous or sul- 
phuric acid, according to the amount of oxvgen 
in combination with the sulphur. This renders 
the soil acid, and unfortunately the more this 
land is worked by the plough and harrow, the 
worse it is, by exposing the stone more and more 
to the action of the oxygen and eliminating in- 
crea.sed quantities of sulphur. 
When corn is planted on lands containing 
this acid, derived from such rocks, it generally 
looks well and promising few a few weeks, at 
least as long as the plant draws its nourishment 
from the decomposing kernel. But after the 
rootlets on the main roots are formed, and they 
begin to fulfil their office, by absorbing water 
from the soil, a re-action takes place and the 
plant remains stationary for several weeks — the 
leaves assume a reddish purple color, the main 
root is corroded or rusted off, to the length of one 
or two inches, and the farmer generally- lays all 
the blame to w’orms, while in fact, there may 
not be a dozen in an acre. After a while a new 
set of roots start out at the lower joint, but so 
few and weak, the crop is light, and a large 
portion of the corn in attempting to cut it. is 
pulled up at h arvesting by the sickle. 
I think upon inquiry among farmers having 
land containing this kind of rock, you will find 
hundreds that will confirm my statements. — 
Here the inquiry may arise, is there any reme- 
dy'? Yes: unleached ashes will neutralize the 
acidity of such soils, (precisely as salaeratus 
does sour dough,) by combining with the free 
acid of the soil and fonning a neutral sulphate 
of potash. But I have my doubts about plaster 
of Paris being useful on such soils, for it is 
composed ot 40 parts sulphuric acid, (oil of vi- 
triol,) and 28 of lime; but the acid is neutraliz- 
ed by the lime, and therefore inert. But reason- 
ing from chemical principles; if we apply to 
such soils, hydrate or slacked lime, it will com- 
bine with the acid of the soil, and the lime will 
be converted into sulphate of lime — plaster of 
Paris — and thus remove the free acid from the 
soil, in the ratio of 40 lbs. of acid to 28 lbs. of 
lime. It can also be remedied by very heavy 
dressings of manure; but that is not always 
within the reach of the farmer. 
“It is well ascertained that different soils have 
different properties; prejudicial to the growth of 
some plants, and favorable to the perfection of 
othei s; and it would be a most fortunate circum- 
stance if these differences in the properties of 
soils were better understood, and more generally 
acted upon by the great mass of farmers. Not- 
withstanding the bad character I have given 
soils containing sulphur in excess, for growing 
corn, and for many other crops it is equally pre- 
judicial, 5 '-et is peculiarly favorable to the per- 
fection of others. In Jones’ Conversations on 
Chemistry,” page 136, speaking of sulphur, he 
says, “it exists in some vegetables, especially 
those of a cruciform tribe f that is, the tribe of 
plants consi-sting of cabbage, tumep, mustard, 
raddish and cress, of every variety. In some re- 
spects this family of plants possesses peculiari- 
ties contained in no other tribe. 
In the December number of the Genesee 
Fanner, page 185, there is an extract copied 
from the Farmers’ Journal, England, on soils, 
by William Chatterly, from which I make the 
following extract 
“The state of chemical combinations in 
which the various ingredients of the soil are 
found, also materially influences its fertility, 
though such combination should differ some- 
what for particular crops; for instance, wheat 
requires that a portion of silica should be in un- 
