i92 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
March 16 
BALANCED PLANT FOOD. 
Part V. 
Wood Ashes and Bone. 
VVe now know that wood ashes con¬ 
tain potash and phosphoric acid as plant 
food, and that by reason of the lime that 
is in them, they act upon the soil in 
several ways. Now let us see about 
bone. Wood ashes and bone together 
are to the plant what a ham sandwich 
would be for a man—the simplest “ bal¬ 
anced ration.” A man can “stay his 
stomach” with a sandwich, but for a 
regular meal, he will take a greater 
variety of the same food elements. The 
soup, meat, vegetables, etc., that make 
up a good dinner, give us the muscle- 
makers, fat-formers and pure fat of the 
sandwich in many different forms— 
more digestible and attractive. Chem¬ 
istry might not find any difference be¬ 
tween the two. The same with ashes 
and bone. They will feed any plant, 
but they may not feed it so well or so 
cheaply as other things would. We can 
all appreciate the difference between a 
sandwich and a full dinner. Both are 
“ square meals,” but one is a cube as 
well as a square. 
Now, in ashes and bone, for the sake 
of illustration, we will compare the 
phosphoric acid to the bread, the potash 
to the butter and nitrogen to the ham. 
Bone, you see, supplies a new element— 
nitrogen. It also furnishes more phos¬ 
phoric acid. Examine a fresh bone with 
the meat boiled or scraped off. It is an 
organic substance which grew and de¬ 
veloped in the body. It was made from 
food which was digested and carried in 
the blood to be deposited in the form of 
bone. Soak the bone in strong acids, 
and you will have a tough, gristly mass 
left, shaped like the original bone. This 
gristle or muscle contains nitrogen and 
does not dissolve in the acid. Burn the 
bone, however, and the gristle is con¬ 
sumed, but you have left a mass of ash 
also the shape of the bone. This ash 
consists chiefly of phosphate of lime 
which, as we said last week, is a com¬ 
bination of lime and phosphorus. 
Now if, instead of burning or dissolv¬ 
ing the bone, we grind it into a fine 
powder, you will see that each little 
particle will contain a portion of the 
hard part and the gristle, or a little each 
of nitrogen, phosphoric acid and lime. 
There is no potash in bone. That is 
supplied in the ashes, and when we mix 
the two, we have all three elements— 
just as we have bread, butter and ham 
in every mouthful taken from the ham 
sandwich. Bone is the most interesting 
and important of all fertilizers except 
stable manure. We will talk more about 
its characteristics when we come to dis¬ 
cuss the various forms of nitrogen and 
phosphoric acid. The point to remember 
is that the ashes need the bone because 
it furnishes nitrogen and new forms of 
phosphoric acid and thus complete the 
sandwich. 
First let us consider potash—the but¬ 
ter in the sandwich. Plants need this 
substance and it is often very lacking in 
soils. It exerts a great influence on the 
formation of starch or sugar in plants, 
and is, therefore, of special importance 
A farm of 420 acres, having 12,000 fruit 
trees—apples, pears, peaches, cherries 
planted five years ago, can be bought this 
winter at a low price. The farm nearly 
adjoins the city of Chillicothe, O., lies on 
fine rolling land well adapted to fruit 
culture and stock raising. The owner 
died and the land came into the hands of 
a corporation whose business is not farm¬ 
ing or fruit growing. It is a fine oppor¬ 
tunity for the right man. For full in¬ 
formation address A. C. Houghton, 81 
Wheeler Building, Columbus, O.— Adv. 
with such crops as potatoes, sugar beets, 
corn or sugar cane. We might compare 
it with pure fat in a “ balanced ration” 
for animals. 
If a cook started to duplicate the but¬ 
ter of a sandwich in a more agreeable 
meal, the first thing to know would be 
what other fats she can use—whether 
they are cheaper or whether they will 
suit the palate. She would soon find 
that lard and various oils are cheaper 
than butter, and that they serve just as 
well in cooking the meal. At present 
prices, few people can afford to use first- 
class butter for cooking. They use the 
cheaper fats for that, and use good but¬ 
ter only on the table—to eat uncooked. 
This is usually a matter of economy 
only, and you can see how they would 
lose money if they did not know that 
lard, etc., gave cheaper cooking fat for 
their food. We can’t use lard and these 
cheap fats in the sandwich, and that is 
one reason why the sandwich gives less 
nourishment for a dime than some forms 
of stews or soups—it costs more ! 
So the first step in examining economy 
of the plant’s ham sandwich, is to see 
where we can get cheaper butter. For 
many years, wood ashes gave about the 
only source of potash—just as for many 
years people were forced to depend on 
animal fats and whale oil for lights. The 
discoveries of petroleum changed all 
that, and in like manner the discovery 
of potash mines in Germany gave us new 
sources of potash, so that we were no 
longer dependent on wood ashes alone. 
The forms of these “ potash salts, ’ as 
they are called, generally used as fer¬ 
tilizers, are as follows—showing the 
amount of potash in a ton of each : 
POUNDS OP POTASH IN TON. 
Wood ashes. U0 
Sulphate of potash.1,000 
Muriate of potash.1,000 
Kainit. 250 
Double manure salt. 520 
Svlvinite. 300 
Now, bear in mind, that is just like 
saying that butter contains 85 pounds 
pure fat to each 100, salt pork 82, “oleo” 
84, kidney fat 94, and oils 80. The house¬ 
wife would know to what extent pork, 
oil or beef fat would take the place of 
butter in her cooking, because she knows 
how these fats would taste, and how 
anything disagreeable about them can 
be changed by cooking or mixing. A 
plant doesn’t turn up its nose at any sol¬ 
uble food, but some plants, like potatoes, 
tobacco or sugar beets, demand pure 
butter (or potash in its best forms) to 
make the best quality. 
We would call the potash in wood 
ashes and sulphate of potash, pure butter 
for the sandwich. The ashes represent 
dairy butter, while the sulphate of potash 
will represent creamery butter. We 
found last week that potash in ashes is a 
carbonate. That form is quickly soluble, 
and soon taken up by plants. It gives 
the best quality , but wood ashes are not 
recommended for potatoes, because it is 
claimed that the lime in the ashes causes 
scab. The chemists rank the carbonates 
and sulphates of potash as best, valuing 
them at one cent a pound more than the 
other forms. For potatoes, we prefer 
the sulphate to any other form. “Muri¬ 
ate” of potash, as we explained last week, 
is a combination of potash and chlorine. 
When you remember that what we call 
common salt, is a combination of chlor¬ 
ine and soda, you will see that “muriate” 
is in many ways like salt. Too much 
chlorine is bad for starch and sugar-pro¬ 
ducing plants, and to produce the highest 
quality, the sulphate of potash is desir¬ 
able. The muriate, however, is usually 
the cheapest form of potash, and is the 
form generally used except on such 
plants as tobacco, beets, and possibly po¬ 
tatoes. Why this is so, will be told when 
we talk of the digestive powers of plants, j 
Kainit, sylvinit, etc., are different forms 
of potash that are taken from the mines. 
They are usually mixtures of common 
salt, sulphate and muriate of potash, and ! 
various other substances. They are 
valued only for the potash they contain. | 
This potash is valued at 4% cents a j 
pound, where that in wood ashes and j 
sulphate is valued at 5% cents. 
$UmUanmt?s gUintisinfl. 
Call It a Craze. 
AN ALARMING STATEMENT 
CONCERNING WOMEN. 
HOW BAD HABITS ARE FORMED. 
The New York Tribune says : “ The habit of 
taking ‘ headache powders ’ is increasing to an 
alarming extent among a great number of wo¬ 
men throughout the country. These powders as 
their name indicates, are claimed by the manu¬ 
facturers to be a positive and speedy cure for any 
form of headache. In many cases their chief 
ingredient is morphine, opium, cocaine or some 
Other equally injurious drug having a tendency 
to deaden pain. The habit of taking them is 
easily formed, but almost impossible to shake 
off. Women usually begin taking them to re¬ 
lieve a raging headache and soon resort to the 
powder to alleviate any little pain or ache they 
may be subjected to, and finally like the mor¬ 
phine or opium fiend, get into the habit of taking 
them regularly, imagining that they are in pain 
if they happen to miss their regular dose.” 
In nine cases out of ten, the trouble is 
in the stomach and liver. Take a simple 
laxative and liver tonic and remove the 
offending matter which deranges the 
stomach and causes the headache. Dr. 
Pierce’s Pleasant Pellets are composed 
entirely of the purest, concentrated, 
vegetable extracts. One Pellet is a 
dose; sugar-coated, easily swallowed; 
once used, always in favor. They posi¬ 
tively cure sick headache and remove 
the disposition to it. 
Mr. E. Vargason, of Otter Lake, iMpeer Co., 
Mich., writes : “ I not 
infrequently have an at¬ 
tack of the headache. 
It usually comes on in 
the forenoon. At my 
dinner I eat my regular 
meal, and take one or 
two of Doctor Pierce’s 
Pleasant Pellets imme¬ 
diately after, and in the 
course of an hour my 
headache is cured and 
no bad effects. I feel 
better every way for 
having taken them— 
not worse, as is usual 
after taking other kinds 
of pills. ‘ Pleasant Pel¬ 
lets ’ are worth more 
than their weight in 
gold, if for nothing else 
E. Vargason. Esq. thau to cure headache.” 
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