88o 
TIIH RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
December 19 
and wildest possible ideas were held regarding the 
growth of plants. There were no such words in the 
language as nitrogen, potash or phosphoric acid, for 
these substances had not been discovered. Ashes 
were known to be useful as fertilizers, but until 
quite late in history “ learned men ” believed that 
lime, potash, phosphoric acid, etc., were products 
of the vital force—made and elaborated by the 
growing plant. It was also known that bones were 
“good for the ground,” old histories telling how 
the Welsh made a prison out of the bones of thousands 
of Romans slaughtered in battle. As the bones in this 
prison crumbled it was noticed that the land improved. 
The Romans also noticed that after a famous battle 
among their vineyards, in which thousands of men were 
slaughtered, the vines “ produced remarkably for years 
afterwards.” Such dressings of bone were too costly 
even for that age. While the farmers of that day 
knew that bone, ashes and other things made the 
plants grow better, they did not know why it was so ; 
on the whole, they seem to have credited it to some 
strange, supernatural power that had better not be 
interfered with. Their ideas respecting the habits and 
growth of plants were wilder yet. As late as 1750 we 
find a Dr. Woodward writing the following : 
“It is not possible to imagine how one uniform, 
homogenous matter, having its principles or original 
parts, all of the same substance, constitution, magni¬ 
tude, figure and gravity, should ever constitute 
bodies so egregiously unlike, in all these re¬ 
spects, as vegetables of different kinds are ; 
nay, even as the different parts of the same 
vegetable. 
“ That there should be that vast difference 
in them, in their several constitutions, makes, 
properties and effects, and yet all arise from 
the same sort of matter would be very strange. 
“ Water will pass pores and interstices that 
neither air nor any other fluid will. This en¬ 
ables it to enter the finest tubes and vessels of 
plants and to introduce the terrestrial matter, 
conveying it to all parts of them which, each 
by means of organs ’tis endowed with, for the 
purpose, intercepts and assumes into itself 
such particles as are suitable to its own nature, 
letting the rest pass through the common ducts. 
“ Each sort of grain takes forth that peculiar 
matter that is proper for its own nourishment. 
First, the wheat draws off those particles that 
suit the body of that plant, the rest lying all 
quiet and undisturbed the while. And when 
the earth has yielded them up. those that are 
proper for barley, a different grain, remain 
behind till the successive crops of that crop 
fetch them forth too. and so the oats and pease 
in their turn, till, in fine, all is carried off.” 
Thus we see, these men had no idea of 
the different “ chemical elements.” It was not 
until chemists picked the soil, the manure and 
the plant to pieces and showed that each is made up of 
13 distinct substances that real progress could be made. 
Progress since then has been in the line of discovering 
the true proportions in which these 13 substances 
should be minted and the most economical method 
of securing them. In 1840, Liebig published his vol¬ 
ume on Chemistry in its Relations to Physiology and 
Agriculture. Agriculture as a science dates from the 
publication of that book. It opened the way for in¬ 
vestigators to show why dung made crops grow and how 
an artificial or concentrated dung, or a manurial sub¬ 
stance equal to it in all respects can be made without 
any live stock. 
Americans used fertilizers before the Europeans did— 
that is, the Peruvians used large quantities of guano 
and enacted stringent measures to prevent any dis¬ 
turbance among the sea fowl. It was a capital offence 
to kill the young birds, or to wantonly frighten them. 
They have left this proverb : 
Guano can work miracles, 
Tho’ It Is not numbered with the saints. 
In 1842 182 tons reached England. Its present annual 
sale there is to the extent of nearly 400.000 tons. It 
was not until Liebig analyzed guano and proved its 
value that it became an article of commerce. Guano 
reached this country early in the forties. It was largely 
used on the old exhausted farms of Maryland, Virginia 
and North Carolina and slowly worked its way over 
the country, though seldom used far away from the 
water-ways. 
In 1820 the first cargo of nitrate of soda was sent to 
England, but was thrown overboard in harbor because 
the duty was so high that it would not pay to pass it 
through the custom house. In 1830 a cargo came to 
the United States, but there was no sale; In that year 
18,700 tons were exported from Iquique ; in 1840, 227,- 
300 tons; in 1850, 511,800 tons ; in 1800, 1,370,200 tons; 
in 1870, 2,743,400 tons. In 1872 the amount had risen to 
4,000,000 tons. 
Up to 35 years ago potash was obtained almost 
entirely from wood ashes. It was never applied in a 
pure state as a fertilizer, being far too expensive. It 
was not until the potash mines in Stassfurt, Prussia, 
were opened and developed that such a thing as a 
“ complete” fertilizer at a reasonable price was possible. 
In 1839 there was a scarcity of salt in Prussia and bor¬ 
ings were made at Stassfurt in the hope of finding salt 
water or rock salt. In 1843 salt first appeared. The 
first salt liquors raised were disappointing as they con¬ 
tained more potash than salt. After boring 1,000 feet 
more, however, a bed of pure rock salt was struck, but 
to get at it, vast quantities of potash and magnesia salts 
had to be dug out and dumped on waste ground at the 
mouth of the mine. In 1860, the chemist, Rose, called 
attention to the value of this waste and its use as a fer¬ 
tilizer has grown until to day enormous quantities are 
used—and a supply of this necessary fertilizing element 
is assured. The existence of deposits of phosphate 
rock in South Carolina and Florida was known long 
before the war, but no systematic effort was made to 
mine them—in fact, no one fully realized their value, 
because, as we have said, no one comprehended the 
science of manuring or the possibility of providing “ar¬ 
tificial dung.” In spite of the fact that the Pilgrims 
used fish fertilizer, the business of utilizing and selling 
this waste product as manure began not until 1849. In 
late years, particularly since the war, the work of util¬ 
izing waste substances and turning them into fertilizers 
has grown with wonderful rapidity. Washings of 
wool, smoke, water from gas works, and countless 
other products—useless as a whole—now are made to 
yield nitrogen and phosphoric acid in a form suitable 
for direct application as a fertilizer or for mixing with 
potash to make ‘ ‘ complete” manures. The use of 
cotton seed at the South is a good illustration. At first 
the seed was dumped into the river to get rid of it. 
Now the oil, the meal, the hulls and the ashes of the 
seed are worth about as much as the whole fibre crop. 
In the light of this history it is almost bewildering 
to consider our present advance in the science of feed¬ 
ing the soil. And yet, even now, our best scientists 
agree that we are but beginning to grasp the possi¬ 
bilities of ‘ ‘ plant manufacture. ” We may have mas¬ 
tered the first principles and proved certain funda¬ 
mental truths, but the future is to reveal knowledge 
concerning the application of these principles that we 
little dream of now. The old-time farmers with their 
belief that manures and soils were “one homogeneous 
matter” fed the plant, but they fed it at a loss, because 
they could not understand that they were feeding 
more of some substances than the plant needed. We 
have learned much, but the frequent failures and con¬ 
tradictions of our experiments show that the details of 
the science of plant feeding are yet to be worked out. 
What man reading the wonderful progress of the past 
half century can fail to have hope and faith that the 
coming years will bring broader knowledge and greater 
triumphs of science than the years that have now 
passed behind us. It is not unpleasant to believe that 
the historian of 50 years hence may point to our pres¬ 
ent beliefs and practices as evidences of the crudeness 
of our age and time ! 
Grass Twine Binder. —It is coming—freedom from 
the “Twine Trust.” The picture seen on page 880 
shows a Walter A. Wood binder using twine or cord 
made of grass. The cord is about as large as a 
clothes line and is made “ at home.” We have only 
space for a “ note” about it in this issue. More about 
it next week ! The world is progressing. 
Cans’t Thou Minister to a Plant Diseased ? 
Although we can find no data on the subject, there is 
no reason to doubt that the first crops grown by our 
ancestors on the soil of the New World were attacked 
by various diseases. Four hundred years ago, how¬ 
ever. such things as “blasts” and “blights” were 
looked upon in many cases as mysteries into which it 
was not proper to inquire. Thus we read of “ foul 
fiends causing mildew” of grains, and “ visitations of 
divine wrath which causeth the grapes to blast, stink,” 
etc. Matters remained in this condition until the 
eighteenth century, when chiefly through the labors of 
European workers, a little light was thrown on the 
subject. 
At this time it was held by some writers that a num¬ 
ber of plant diseases, such as rusts, smuts, bunts, etc., 
were due to the attacks of fungi; on the other hand, 
many advocated that fungi were nothing more than 
disorganized or transformed cells of the plants upon 
which they were found. Even as late as 1843 we find 
in a prominent agricultural publication a paper on the 
smut of wheat, in which it is held that the disease is 
due to a “ special change” in the structure of the grain 
brought about by too much carbon in the soil. The 
writer regards the smut as carbon, but does not attempt 
to explain why it is localized in the grain. 
With regard to preventing the attacks of these dis¬ 
eases, practically nothing was known by the earlier 
settlers, although we have evidence that cer¬ 
tain well established facts bearing on this 
subject were recognized, advantage being taken 
of them in a number of ways. Thus in 1760 
Massachusetts passed a law making it an 
offense to allow barberry bushes to grow in 
the State. Practical farmers had long recog¬ 
nized the fact that barberry bushes in the 
vicinity of grain fields caused rust, and the 
passage of the law was, therefore, an attempt 
to root out the evil. It was not until 100 years 
later that this belief, founded on the practical 
experience bf farmers, was shown to be a 
scientific fact, DeBary, a German investigator^ 
proving conclusively that the barberry serves 
as a host for one stage of wheat rust and that 
the fungus could be transferred from one to the 
other without difficulty. 
Aside from the treatment of seed wheat and 
other grains with various preparations, such 
as brine, bluestone solution, etc., very little in 
the way of preventing diseases of crops was 
undertaken until a comparatively recent period. 
About 20 years ago the first real investigations 
looking toward a better understanding of the 
causes and treatment of plant diseases were 
bugun in this country, and since that time 
the work has been rapidly pushed forward. 
In 1885 the National Government took the 
matter in hand, establishing a Section of Veg¬ 
etable Pathology in the Department of Agricul¬ 
ture at Washington. This Section had for its object 
the study of plant diseases with a view of preventing 
the injuries occasioned thereby. More recently the 
experiment stations throughout the country have taken 
this matter in charge, so that now the United States is 
leading the world in practical work of this kind. 
Chiefly through the efforts of the Department of Agri¬ 
culture and the experiment stations, farmers, fruit 
growers, and others everywhere are being made ac¬ 
quainted with the cause and treatment of some of the 
worst diseases affecting their crops. They know that 
grapes rot because they are attacked by a microscopic 
parasitic plant. Furthermore, they are aware that this 
pest can be prevented by timely, simple and inexpen¬ 
sive treatment. Instead of calmly folding the hands 
and bemoaning fate, the grape grower with the light 
of science to guide him, now bestirs himself, gets 
various chemicals and spraying apparatus together and 
begins the battle which, if properly conducted, is sure 
to result successfully. 
With a view of bringing out more clearly the meth¬ 
ods now employed in treating diseases of plants it may 
be well to say a few words bearing more directly on 
this subject. Most of the important diseases now suc¬ 
cessfully combatted are caused by the attacks of para¬ 
sitic fungi, minute plants which do not possess the 
power of getting food from the air and soil. Fungi owe 
their existence to spores or bodies analogous to seed 
and by their growth in the tissues of fruits, leaves, or 
other parts of the plant they produce the various dis¬ 
eases we know as rots, blights, mildews, etc. In order 
to prevent these injuries the spores must be destroyed 
as soon as they fall upon the parts of the plant subject 
to attack. To accomplish this there is applied to the 
plants, if possible in advance of the fungus, various 
preparations known to be destructive to the fungus 
but harmless to the host and, what is more important, 
to man himself. 
All this may seem an easy task, but when the matter 
is looked at more carefully, it will be seen that before 
Percheron Stallion, Joseph 6471. Fig. 323. See page 877. 
