1878.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
211 
form of ammonia, nitric acid, etc., from the at¬ 
mosphere. By far the largest part of the nitro¬ 
gen of plants is absorbed from the soil through 
the roots. Nitrogen is available to plants only in 
certain combinations; is slow to form these com¬ 
pounds, and easily leaves them. It readily escapes 
from the manures and soils into the air, and is 
leached away by water. It is one of the most com¬ 
monly deficient, and hence the most costly ingredi¬ 
ents of the food of plants. Farmers are continually 
paying from 20 to 40 cents per pound for nitrogen 
in fertilizers, and their crops often fail for want of it. 
Nitrates are compounds of nitric acid with 
other materials called bases. Thus nitric acid 
united with the base soda, forms Nitrate of Soda , 
which is one of the most valuable of our fertilizers. 
The Mineral matter or Ash 
consists of several ingredients, of which the names 
are Potash, Soda, Lime, Magnesia, Iron, Silica, 
Sulphuric Acid, Phosphoric Acid, and Chlorine. 
Potash.— The basis of this is a very soft, light, 
silver-colored metal, called Potassium. Potassium 
unites with oxygen to form a compound which is 
known in chemistry as potassiumoxide or oxide of 
potassium. It is also called potassa, or more famili¬ 
arly, potash. When wood ashes are leached the 
potash is dissolved out, and it is the active ingredi¬ 
ent of the lye. 
Soda, or sodium oxide, is a compound of oxygen 
with the metal Sodium. What is commonly catted 
soda, is carbonate of soda , a compound of soda with 
carbonic acid. Common salt contains sodium also, 
but here combined with chlorine instead of oxygen. 
Chlorine , by itself, is a yellowish green gas. As it 
unites with sodium to make chloride of sodium, or 
common salt, so, when united with potassium, it 
forms chloride of potassium. Potassium chloride is 
the chief ingredient of “muriate of potash,” ode 
of the most important of the German Potash Salts. 
Lime (calcium oxide), is the basis of limestones, 
marble, oyster shells, and the like. In these it is 
combined with carbonic acid in the form of carbon¬ 
ate of lime. By heating limestone the carbonic acid 
is driven off, and lime is left in its common caustic 
unslaked form. 
Magnesia is the oxide of the metal magnesium. 
The “calcined magnesia” of the apothecaries is 
impure magnesia, with the carbonic acid expelled. 
Iron is the same element, whether found in 
plants, manures, or soils, in which 
it invariably occurs in very small 
proportions as an oxide, or in 
the various ores from which it is 
manufactured on a large scale. 
Silica. —Quartz,or “rock crys¬ 
tal,” is pure silica. Flint is nearly 
pure silica. Silica combined with 
various other elements, makes 
up the larger part of the rocks 
and minerals of the globe. Sharp 
sand consists chiefly of silica. 
Sulphuric Acid.—Sulphur is 
familiar to every one in the forms 
of brimstone and flowers of sul¬ 
phur. Sulphur united with oxy¬ 
gen, forms sulphuric oxide, or, 
as it is more frequently called, 
sulphuric acid. The ordinary sul¬ 
phuric acid of commerce, called 
“Oil of Vitriol,” and used in 
making superphosphates, con¬ 
sists of sulphuric oxide with a 
small proportion of water. 
Sulphates. If sulphuric acid and lime are mixed 
together, they will unite and form a chemical com¬ 
pound, Sulphate of Lime. Gypsum or plaster is a 
more or less impure sulphate of lime. Sulphuric 
acid and magnesia make Sulphate of Magnesia, 
which we know as Epsom Salts; it occurs in some 
of the German Potash Salts. So Sulphate of Soda 
consists of sulphuric acid and soda. Sulphate of 
Potash, the basis of the best potash salts, used as 
fertilizers, consists of sulphuric acid united to 
potassa. Sulphate of Ammonia , which is a valuable 
fertilizer, consists of ammonia and sulphuric acid. 
Phosphoric acid.— Phosphorus is the material 
tyfticb is used for the tips of friction matches, sti<] 
causes them to shine when rubbed in the dark. It 
burns very easily, and in so doing unites with the 
oxygen of the air, and forms phosphoric oxide, or 
phosphoric acid. 
Phosphates. —Just as sulphuric acid combines 
with lime, potash, and other bases to make sul¬ 
phates, so Phosphoric Acid unites with the same 
basis to form phosphates. Phosphate of lime is the 
most important of the phosphates. It is the basis 
of bone. When bones are burned, the water and 
organic (animal) matter are driven off, and we have 
left the bone-ash, which is nearly pure phosphate 
of lime. The South Carolina, Navassa, Canada, 
and other fossil and mineral phosphates, which are 
used for fertilizers, contain more or less earthy 
matters mixed with the phosphate of lime. 
Whence Plants obtain tliefr Supplies of 
Food. 
Plants get part of their food from the air, through 
their leaves and other green parts, the rest from 
the soil through their roots. This is proven by a 
vast amount of laborious and accurate experiment¬ 
ing, carried on for the most part in the European 
Experiment Stations, for the purpose of discover¬ 
ing the laws of plant nutrition and growth. 
Water. —Plants have the power of absorbing wa¬ 
ter through their leaves, but the bulk of their sup¬ 
ply comes, and mu6t come, from the atmosphere to 
the soil, and thence to the plant through its roots. 
Organic Matter.—Carbon, Oxygen, and Hy¬ 
drogen. —The carbon of plants is taken from the 
atmosphere. The leaves absorb carbonic acid, and 
with the aid of light wrest its carbon and oxygen 
asunder, setting oxygen free, and thus purifying 
the air, while they retain the carbon. Carbon 
unites with hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, to 
make up the various tissues of the plant, the root, 
6 tem, leaf, and seed, the wood and bark, the gluten, 
starch, sugar, and so on. The atmosphere supplies 
carbon far in excess of the demands of plants. 
The best experiments indicate that the carbon is all, 
or nearly all, obtained from the air. The source of 
the oxygen and hydro" en is not definitely settled. It 
is very probable that the water absorbed through the 
roots is the main, if not the entire source of supply. 
Nitrogen. —Our cultivated plants get the bulk 
of their nitrogen from the soil, through their roots. 
Many years of labor of the best investigators, and 
many thousands of dollars, have been devoted to 
the study of the sources of the nitrogen of plant- 
stores up atmospheric nitrogen for plant-food. The 
nitrates in the soil, formed mostly from the decay 
of vegetable and animal matter, are the chief natu¬ 
ral sources of the nitrogen of plant-food. Am¬ 
monia, which, like nitric acid, comes from vegeta¬ 
ble debris and from manures, as well as from the 
air, is also used by plants. Other compounds of 
nitrogen, no one yet knows just what or how many, 
can also be assimilated by plants. 
Mineral Matter, or Ash. —The mineral ingre¬ 
dients of plants are derived exclusively from the 
soil. Of these, Potash, Lime, Magnesia, Iron, 
Phosphoric Acid, and Sulphuric Acid, must be 
furnished to all agricultural plants, through their 
roots and by the soil, in order to their growth. If the 
available soil-supply of any one of these is deficient, 
the whole crop must suffer. As regards soda, silica, 
and chlorine, the experimental evidence is not so 
decisive. A small quantity of chlorine has been 
proven necessary for the perfection of some plants. 
Soda is needed in very minute quantities, if at all 
by crops. A little of silica is probably necessary 
to the perfect blossoming and ripening of grain. 
To sum up in a few words : “ Air and water to¬ 
gether yield the materials out of which fully ninety 
to ninety-eight per cent of crops is built up. The 
soil has to give for their nourishment only the two 
to eight per cent of mineral matters, which remain 
as ashes when they are burned, and the one-half to 
two per cent of nitrogen which they also contain.” 
Contiguous Houses, Costing $2,000 each. 
BT I. B. REED, ARCHITECT, CORONA, LONO ISLAND, X. T. 
These designs were prepared for a block of five 
houses erected last year for Mr. Geo. Storms, fac¬ 
ing one of the principal avenues at Bayside, L. I. 
The entire structure is 90 feet long, running north 
and south, and occupies half the avenue end of a 
village ground plot. One end section being a “ cor¬ 
ner,” has a portion devoted to business purposes, 
the balance of the building is used exclusively as 
residences. They are thoroughly furnished with 
ranges, heaters, pipes for cold and hot water, and 
gas, and complete sewerage. The desirability of 
these buildings (and also of those in last month’s 
American Agriculturist) is proved by the fact that 
Fig. 2.—PLAN OF CELLARS OF CONTIGUOUS HOUSES. 
food. The theory that plants avail themselves of 
the free nitrogen of the air, of which there are 
thousands of tons over every farm, must be re¬ 
garded as wrong. The theory that plants in gen¬ 
eral, and the “large-leaved” plants in particular, 
as clover, turnips, corn, etc., obtain a good deal of 
combined nitrogen (ammonia and nitrates) from the 
air by their leaves, is hardly tenable. The gain of 
nitrogen from this source, seems to be very small 
indeed. The most of the nitrogen of our crops is 
got from the soil through the roots. The soil 
gathers some nitrogen compounds from the air, 
however, and it is extremely probable that it as¬ 
similates free nitrogen, and, thys, in two ways, 
all of them were engaged, and several occupied 
before they were fully completed.Cellsu-s, 
(fig. 2).—Eight of ceilings, 7 feet. Each is well 
lighted, and has outside entrances from the street 
and from rear yards. A hall, laundry, and water- 
closet, are floored and otherwise finished off; the 
balance is unfinished, to be used as a cellar for fuel 
and vegetables. The Laundry has a set of sta¬ 
tionary wash-tubs, with cold and hot water. The 
Water-closet has an outside door leading from the 
rear yard, (this is designed to obviate the necessity 
and unsightliness of the usual out buildings.) 
The Fire-places shown are left open, and have con¬ 
tinuous flues the fyt>plg (light of the chimney?, 
