EXCELSIOR 
i per \r 
t HKM3 , i Single i\o.. Eial 
BAK. 
lit Cent*. 
NEW YORK CITY AND ROCHESTER, N. Y, 
nPPTrrcci 5 Beeknum St., New York. 
OrriCUS . j liutVulu St., Kochealcr. 
YOLXXIY. NO. 9. 
FOR THE WEEK ENDING SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 1871. 
WHOLE NO. 1127. 
iclb (Props. 
EXPERIMENTS WITH WHEAT. 
Agriculturists liave not, as a general 
rule, paid much attention to the structure or 
chemical composition of the plants they cul¬ 
tivated. They have, with lew exceptions, 
been satisfied in knowing that certain plants 
were adapted to particular soils and climates, 
without further inquiry in regard to success 
or failure, and this, too, by a class of people 
whose industry is the foundation of prosperi¬ 
ty with all civilized nations. 
Within the past few years there has been 
a great change in regard to scientific agri¬ 
culture, atid some of the best minds of the 
age have been occupied, not only in making 
discoveries in this field, but in endeavoring 
to tench others to follow in the same or a 
similar channel, and learn why plants grow 
better under certain conditions than others. 
Probably there is no one man living who 
has really done more towards throwing light 
upon scientific agriculture than M. Ville, 
Professor of Vegetable Physiology at the 
Jardiu des Plantes in France. His experi¬ 
ments have been conducted iu the moat care- f 
ful manner and during a series of years, the 
results, as might have been expected, were 
of the most satisfactory and convincing kind. 
In articles written by M. Turgan, editor of 
Le Sieele, and lately republished in the Man¬ 
ufacturer and Builder of New York city, 
(and to which we are indebted for the ac¬ 
companying illustrations,) we find Hie follow¬ 
ing brief description of Prof. Vii.i.k’s ex¬ 
periments with plants, and especially with 
wheat: 
M. Ville maintained that theoretically 
plants could not obtain their nitrogen from 
the ammonia in the air, which contains it 
only in very small quantities, from twenty- ( 
six to thirty-two grammes to a million kilo¬ 
grammes of air; so that, to use his own 
words, it is like a thimble iu comparison 
with the Pantheon' 
To prove this experimentally, he sowed 
grain in soils made artificially from known 
materials, and from which any nitrogenized 
substance was totally excluded. He in¬ 
closed these plants in glass cases and sup¬ 
plied them with a current of air which hud 
been purified of all dust, and of all the am¬ 
monia it could contain, by passing it through 
sulphuric acid and bicarbonate of soda. 
Plums developed under these circumstances 
showed an excess of nitrogen greater Ilian 
that contained iu the seed, but varying more 
or less, according to the nature of the plant. 
This assimilation ol' the nitrogen of the air 
commences in the plant only when the leaves 
have attained a certain development, and 
therefore the experiment is only successful 
when the plant has passed the period when 
it is only the transformed substance of the 
seed. 
Every one Knows that carbon exists in the 
atmosphere as carbonic acid, and that the 
plants absorb it through their leaves. They 
retain the carbon and give back the oxygen, 
while with animals the process is reversed. 
These absorb the oxygen and give back car¬ 
bonic acid. The soil also contaius carboy in 
the form of organic matter, which may by 
decomposition produce carbonic acid. The 
hydrogen and oxygen are furnished by the 
water, whether it reaches Hie plant as rain 
or by artificial irrigation. 
Consequently the cultivator has only to 
furnish the vegetables with one of the four 
organic elements, the nitrogen, which all 
plants have not the capacity of assimilating 
to the same degree in the different periods of 
their existence. With the mineral elements 
the case is different. Every harvest removes 
a greater or less quantity of these from the 
soil, and if they are not replaced, the soil be¬ 
comes, in time, sterile. 
Iu order to determine the special functions 
Figure 1. Figure 2. 
of the mineral elements, M. V ii.lk concluded By the 
that the most certaiu way would be to make garden n 
an artificial soil from inert material. The he obtain 
white sand of Etampes, which is pure silica, a harvest 
answered the purpose, and he added to this 
one by one the elements which chemical 
analysis had shown to exist in the plants to He then i 
he experimented upon, as to forn 
Once having determined his method, he a< ^' in £ 91 
placed iu a white porcelain pot, surrounded cac * 1 l >ot - 
by a coat of melted wax, calcined sand of When 
Etampes, sowed in it twenty grains of wheat a! elemeii 
and irrigated it with distilled water. Under harvest i 
these precarious conditions, the soil being the nitro< 
nothing but a support for the plants and substanci 
roots, and absolutely passive, his harvest using hot 
had a weight of 5 grammes, or about 75 minerals, 
grains, which was thus divided: grammes 
4,5*5 for straw and roots; WitliOi 
0.04 for the grain. was slow 
Figure 3. 
By the addition of a portion of humus, or 
garden mold, deprived of mineral matter, 
he obtained from 20 grains of wheat sowed 
a harvest of 5.47 grammes, divided thus: 
5.10 for straw and roots: 
0.07 for grain. 
He then arranged a number of such pots so 
us to form au ascending scale of fertility by 
adding some one or more constituents to 
each pot. 
When to the sand he added all the miner- | 
al elements we have mentioned above, the 
harvest was 8 grammes; when he added 
the nitrogenized matter without the mineral 
substances, he obtaiued ‘J grammes; but by 
using both the nitrogenized matter and the 
minerals, the harvest reached from 22 to 25 
grammes in weight. 
Without the last combination the growth 
was slow, and he obtained, in truth, rather 
Figure 4. 
the rudiments thau the true plants. They 
were yellow, pale, and miserable. Their 
suffering aspect contrasted strongly with 
plants grown with the combination of nitro¬ 
genous and mineral matter, of which the 
size, color, form, and the whole appearance 
was lilce that of plants grown in the most 
fertile soil in the natural way. 
In order to exhibit the results in a striking 
manner, M. Ville Had the wheat grown 
along a scale, by which the bight attained 
could at once be measured by the eye. When 
full grown, he had them photographed, and 
tints obtained a permanent record of the re¬ 
sults of the experiments. We have now the 
pleasure of placing before our readers a 
aeries of engravings, correctly copied from 
these photographs, which speak volumes for 
themselves. 
Fig. 1.—Complete fertilizer, with excess 
Figure 5 . 
Figure 6. 
Figure 7. 
Figure 8. 
Figurf »*• 
of humus and carbonate of lime. Fig. 2.— 
Complete fertilizer, excess of carbonate of 
lime. Fig. 3.—Complete fertilizer, excess 
of humus. Fig. 4.— Fertilizer without, humus 
or carbonate of lime. Fig. 5.—Fertilizer 
without potash. Fig. 6.—Fertilizer a vi11 1 - 
out magnesia. Fig- 7.—Complete fertilizer 
without the phosphates. Fig. 8.—Nitrogen¬ 
ous matter without mineral. Fig. 9.—Min¬ 
eral matter without nitrogenous. 
--4-*-*-- 
FIELD NOTES AND QUERIES. 
IIow to Iti'iuiw Meadows in tl»o Shortest 
Time. 
S. S. Whitman, Herkimer Co.,N. Y., in 
Country Gentleman gives the following 
modes: Two ways present themselves prom¬ 
inently. The first is to harrow the ground 
thoroughly with a harrow with sharp teeth, 
the last of August or early in September; 
sow a liberal supply of seed; give the meadow 
a good coat of old manure, spread from the 
wagon; then brush it oyer so ns to have tlie 
manure made fine and well incorporated with 
the surface. The second way will he, when 
the ground will admit,to plow the meadow, 
turning a smooth furrow, cultivating with the 
harrow and making the surface smooth ; sow 
the grass seed, following with a liberal coat 
of old manure or compost, spread hum the 
wagon, so as to spread it evenly; use the 
bush to incorporate It firmly with the earth. 
This process should be completed early in 
September, so that the young grass may be 
well rooted before winter, and a full crop 
may be expected the uext season. Plowing 
and seeding with a crop of rye this fall, or a 
crop of barley early in the spring, may be 
desirable in some cases, but it will delay the 
bay crop at least one season. 
KllllnK out ii tick Grind*. 
AVe are troubled with June, quack and 
other grasses that almost, at times, ruin our 
grain crops. Summer fallowing in usual 
way does not entirely kill it, and ou rainy 
seasons only makes it grow. 1 write to ask 
the intelligent readers of your paper to give 
me their practical experience in killing it. 
Have a heavy sod of it which I wish to re¬ 
seed with clover. Some tell me to plow late 
this fall and summer fallow next season. 
Others say will kill better to plow next 
spring, then summer fallow.—J. lv. Riley. 
|*',uy hi inn W In-lit. 
In answer to “Old Farmer," concerning 
the wheat most profitable for farmers to 
grow, I would advise all to sow the “Egyp¬ 
tian ” wheat. I have grown two crops, the 
first yielded thirty-two bushels per acre 
(eight acres), the last thirty-lbur bushels 
(nine and three-quarter acres). It is a light 
amber wheat and worth ns much ns white 
wheat. One and a-lialf bushels to the acre 
is enough to sow. Have found from ten to 
twenty-three stalks from one kernel. Stands 
up good on rich soil. I did not give mine 
any extra culture.—G. 11., Hudson, Mich. 
Topplim Tobacco. 
I would say to the Connecticut Grower 
of tobacco that twelve leaves on a plant arc 
enough. I learned to raise tobacco of an old 
colored man, who had cultivated this plant 
all his life, and he always topped it as soon 
as the flower buds appeared, first pulling all 
the lower leaves off that Jay on the ground 
and keeping all the suckers off. In tin's way 
he will raise very sk'ODg tobacco. N. R. 
Deuel, Hampton, V«-, 1871. 
The Mr-*" ,,u<l WkllllHK Iluslies. 
g F ty^ley writes that the best time to 
kill tree** bushes, &c., is “ in the dark of the 
moo ,- in July or August.” Air. Tulley will 
yp.i be good enough to enlighten the people 
Jf Southern Kansas why the operation 
should not be done in the new as well as the 
old of Hie moon ? We would all be pleased 
to learn what, particular effect the changes 
of the moon has upon vegetation, as to the 
time of killing it.— W. S. R., Verdi , Kan. 
[Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, by D. D. T. Moore, in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.] 
