CAUSE OF RUST IN WHEAT.-AGRICULTURAL CHEMIUTR F AND GEOLOGY. 
315 
CAUSE OF RUST IN WHEAT. 
The rust this season has put an end to all our pre¬ 
vious speculations as to the real cause of it upon 
wheat, viz\: that a luxuriant growth of straw, with 
a rapid flow,of sap, caused by excessive moisture and 
heat, were the combined causes which produced it. 
The reverse has been the case in every particular this 
season : straw short and light, weather cool and ex¬ 
tremely dry, and previous to the 9th of July, wheat was 
filling well; but a few hot days then did the mischief. 
If the true cause could be discovered, and a prevent¬ 
ive or remedy found out, it would be a most valuable 
acquisition to agricultural science. I have suffered 
more from it in the course of my farming operations, 
than from all other causes put together. Please 
call the attention of your correspondents to this im¬ 
portant subject. G. 
We do not know the exact locality of our corres¬ 
pondent ; but did not the humidity rising from the ca¬ 
nal or Genesee river by night, and the hot sun of the 
next day do the mischief ? or was there not a shower 
or two about the 9th of July, followed by a hot sun ? 
We have known a rain of an hour or two at night, 
followed by a bright sun the next day, do great injury 
in the wheat fields. We should be obliged if our 
correspondent would make still further investigations 
in this matter, and let us know the result. 
AGRICULTURAL CHEMISTRY AND GEO¬ 
LOGY—No. III. 
Q. Why are many of the heaviest clays in the 
country laid down to permanent pasture ? 
A. Because the expense of plowing and working 
these soils is so great, that the value of the grain 
reaped from them is not sufficient to pay the farmer 
for his trouble. 
Q. How could these heavy clay lands be rendered 
lighter, and more cheap to work ? 
A . By draining, subsoil plowing, and by the 
addition of lime or marl, when it is required. 
The teacher will here explain to his pupils the differ¬ 
ence between com non plowing , which merely turns 
over the surface coil,— subsoil plowing , which only 
stirs and loosens the subsoil,—and trench plowing , 
or trenching, which brings the subsoil to the sur¬ 
face. 
Q. But with any kind of cropping may not a fer¬ 
tile soil be at length made unproductive ? 
A. Yes, if the crops are carried off the land, and 
what they draw from the soil is not again restored 
to it. 
Q. How is this explained l 
A. Every crop takes away from the soil a certain 
quantity of those substances which all plants require. 
If you are always taking out of a purse, it will at 
last become empty. 
Q. Then you liken exhausted land to an empty 
purse ? 
A. Yes; the farmer takes his money out of the 
land, and if he is always taking out and putting 
nothing in, it must at last become empty or exhausted. 
Q. But if he puts something into the soil now and 
then, he may continue to crop without exhausting it ? 
A. Yes, if he put in the proper substances, in the 
proper quantities, and at the proper time, he may 
keep up the fertility of his land—perhaps for ever. 
Q. What is a manure ? 
A. Anything that furnishes food to plants may be 
called a manure. 
Q. Would you bury the sods deep, if you were 
plowing up grass land ? 
A. No; I would keep the sods so near the surface 
that the roots of the young grain could feed upon the 
decaying grass. 
Q. Are any other plants plowed in green for the 
purpose of manuring the soil ? 
A. Yes; clover, buckwheat, rape, rye, and in 
some places even young turnips are plowed in green, 
to enrich the soil. 
Q. Into what kind of soils would you plow in a 
green crop ? 
A. Into light and sandy soils, and into such as 
contain very little vegetable matter. 
Q. What are the most important animal manures ? 
A. The blood, flesh, bones, hair, wool, and the 
dung and urine of animals, and the refuse of fish. 
Q. In what form is blood usually employed as a 
manure ? 
A. In this country it is usually mixed up with 
other refuse in the dunghills of the butchers. In other 
countries it is dried and applied as a top-dressing, or 
drilled in with the seed. It is one of the most pow¬ 
erful manures. 
Q. How is flesh employed as a manure ? 
A. The flesh of dead horses, cows, and dogs buried 
in soil or saw dust, with a little marl, makes a most 
enriching compost. 
Q. In what form are bones usually employed as a 
manure ? 
A. Bones are crushed in mills, and then sifted into 
the various sizes of inch bones, half-inch bones, and 
dust. 
Q. In which of these forms do they act most 
quickly ? 
A. They act most quickly in the form of dust, but 
they do not act for so long a time. 
Q. To what crops are they most usually applied ? 
A. Bones are most profitably employed on light oi 
on well-drained lands, instead of the whole or of a 
part of the farm-yard manure. When employed 
without farm-yard manure, they are often mixed 
with wood ashes, and drilled in with the turnip seed. 
Q. Would you raise all your turnip crops with 
bones alone ? 
A. No ; if I raised one crop of turnips from bones 
alone, I would raise the next crop on the same field 
with farm-yard manure alone—if I could get it. 
Q. Are bones ever applied to grass lands r 
A. Yes; to grass lands that have long been pas¬ 
tured by growing stock, or for dairy purposes, as in 
Cheshire, they have been applied with great profit. 
Even when the grass lands are wet, the bones have 
produced remarkable benefits. 
Q. What do bones consist of ? 
A. Bones consist of glue or gelatine, which may 
be partly extracted by boiling them in water—and of 
bone-earth, which remains behind when bones are 
burned. 
Here the teacher may burn a small splinter of bone 
in the flame of a lamp or candle, and show that 
though the organic part (the gelatine) burns away, 
the inorganic part, or bone-earth ( phosphate of 
lime) remains behind. 
Q. Is the glue or gelatine of bones a good manure t 
A. Yes; it is a powerful manure. It assists very 
