354 
boys 5 department. 
Bobs’ ^Department. 
EFFECTS OF AZOTIZED MANURES. 
Crops supplied with highly azotized manures at¬ 
tain a size far exceeding that they attain under or¬ 
dinary cultivation. Hence turnips will be twice 
the size both in leaf and bulb, and the cereal grasses 
will be double the dimensions; not to mention 
that many sandy soils were entirely incapable of 
growing turnips until bones, a highly azotized ma¬ 
nure, were applied; since which time, they grow 
not only turnips and seeds, but wheat very vigor¬ 
ously. Before that period they could only be em¬ 
ployed in the grow T th of rye. Azote alone solves 
the problem; wheat contains 0.23 per cent, of 
azote ; rye only 0.17. Such soils would, however, 
grow potatoes, and were ample in their production 
of the Jerusalem artichoke ; potatoes containing but 
0.15 per cent, of azote, and artichokes 0.04. The 
green color of plants is due to their carbon, because 
plants excluded from light, a necessary vehicle of 
their assimilating carbon, grow indeed, but yellow, 
watery, and destitute of carbon. Celery, which 
naturally is rank and sticky in its stems, by having 
the light excluded by covering with soil, becomes 
soft and insipid. Water and azotized manure are 
both necessary to its complete development as a 
blanched product; hence the azote stimulates the 
growth, and hydrogen and oxygen are absorbed in¬ 
stead of carbon. 
Azote is wasted and carried off a farm in a thou¬ 
sand ways. Every bushel of corn; every bat of 
straw; every load of turnips, potatoes, carrots; 
every pound of hay or clover,—of peas,—of beans,— 
of every animal bred and sold off—deazotizes the 
farm; nor is this the only process; weeds, if al¬ 
lowed to dry and left exposed on the surface, and 
tons of which are every year burned by many 
farmers, cause an exhaustion of incalculable quan¬ 
tities! 
The manure of fat animals has long been consi¬ 
dered of more value than that of lean ones. A feed¬ 
ing pasture would retain its quality for years as 
such, but when breeding is resorted to, the soil is 
invariably deteriorated. This is inexplicable on the 
ordinarily understood principles of causation, but 
this view clears up the matter at once. Feeding 
animals lay on only fat, or nearly so; fat is desti¬ 
tute of azote, and therefore they leave the azote in 
the excrements, it not being necessary to the ani¬ 
mal economy. Growing and lean animals, on the 
contrary, require supplies of flesh and bones; the 
basis of the former ( fibrine ) contains as much as 
19 9 34 per cent, of azote, and the basis of the latter 
{gelatine) 16.998 per cent. 
Blood and bones being the best representatives of 
the gas, might therefore be expected to be very 
valuable manures; experience decides them to be 
superior to any, simply because they are concentra¬ 
tions of the azote obtained from the poor breeder’s 
farm, in England, in the shape of bones and blood of 
the animal, and he has to employ ships and sailors to 
bring him azote to supply its place in the shape of 
bones from Russia. 
Azote has been hitherto almost overlooked. 
There is, however, a greater reciprocity of depen¬ 
dence between vegetables and animals than is gene¬ 
rally understood ; besides the latter giving off car¬ 
bonic acid, and the former absorbing it, and giving 
off oxygen again to be absorbed by animals. There 
is also a mutual interchange of the principle in re¬ 
view. Azote is necessary to animals and their ex¬ 
istence, and they obtain it by consuming vegetables. 
It is also necessary to vegetables in order for them 
to supply it, and they again obtain it from animals. 
Decomposition and organization are thus more con¬ 
nected with, and dependent upon each other than is 
generally supposed. 
Plants, however, will grow in charcoal fora con¬ 
siderable period. It has been contended from this 
that azotized matter must necessarily be introduced 
by the air, supposing it to be necessary to the de¬ 
velopment of the plant. This supposition is not at 
all necessary, however, for Berthollet found the aeri¬ 
form products of the distillation of charcoal to con¬ 
tain a considerable quantity of azote. If this, there¬ 
fore, were available to the plants by any process of 
decomposition, their developments were capable of 
effecting, it does not prove its being necessarily ob¬ 
tained from the atmosphere. 
The free fermentation of manures has been much 
objected to by agricultural chemists, because so 
many of the gases useful to vegetation are dissipat¬ 
ed by the process. No farmer, however, applies 
his manure without considerable fermentation, be¬ 
cause he finds well fermented manure much more 
valuable than unfermented. As charcoal has the 
most amazing power of absorption, and will, in 24 
hours, absorb 90 volumes of ammoniacal gas, may 
not this carbonaceous matter have the tendency of 
absorbing the ammonia and retaining—not fixing it 
—to give off to the plants, and as it has the greatest 
capability of absorbing the last named gas of any 
other, may not this solve the difficult problem, or at 
least partly solve it ? Its capability of absorbing 
also 35 volumes of carbonic acid gas renders the 
apparent loss of that gas by the first processes of 
fermentation partly compensated for. 
' The effects of unfermented dung in a dry season 
are also, as regards moisture, considerably modified 
by the presence of the carbonaceous matter it ex¬ 
hibits when more fully decomposed. Undecompos 1 
ed vegetable matter renders the soil porous, and con¬ 
ducts heat rapidly; the carbon conducts the caloric 
much more slowly, and hence is more favorable to 
the soils retaining its moisture .—Condensed from 
the Farmer's Herald. * 
Cheese as an Article of Food. —This well- 
known substance has been objected to as an article 
of diet, but without sufficient reason. That the hard, 
inferior kinds of cheese are not very digestible must 
be acknowledged, and when eaten in excess may 
overload the stomach ; but when the quality is good, 
and the digestive organs are in a healthy condition, 
it proves not only wholesome but very nutritious. 
Like most other kinds of food, cheese digests more 
readily when well masticated, and the neglect oi 
this precaution is one reason why it frequently dis¬ 
agrees with delicate stomachs. It is rendered more 
agreeable to most persons by toasting, but becomes 
less digestible by that operation. When taker} as a 
condiment, especially when rich and old, it power¬ 
fully promotes the secretion of the saliva and gas * 
trie juice, and thereby aids the stomach in perforin 
ing its proper functions. 
