173 
1846. THE CULTIVATOR. 
I bought my farm in April, 1844, and with the excep¬ 
tion of about 25 acres that were broken up, all was as 
it came from the hand of nature, (very beautiful and 
rich certainly.) Before the end of September, the 
same year, I had sowed 176 acres of wheat, and about 
20 of rye—-and had broken for spring crops about sixty 
acres more, which was duly seeded the following 
spring. From the 176 acres I harvested last July 
rather over 3200 bushels of wheat—very superior in 
quality, and weighing 63 lbs. per bushel. This crop 
of wheat cost me a fraction under 24 cents per bushel 
delivered in my granaries, (not including the expense 
of breaking up the land,) every expense included, say 
labor, seed, threshing, teaming, interest on the value 
of the land and improvements, &c., &c. This result on 
-next season I expect as is usual, a considerable 
increase of grain per acre, which, of course, will re¬ 
duce the average cost per bushel in a ratio. 
The breaking up, and seeding down, inclvding seed , 
thorough harrowing, &e., &c., cost me exactly $3f per 
acre. What does it cost per acre to clear timber land, 
leaving the stumps in the ground? and how many years 
must elapse ere 100 acres are thus half cleared. Here 
the comparative ease and economy with which prairie 
land may be worked—probably at less than half the 
labor or cost of the clearings—and it will do good ser¬ 
vice much longer without manure! 
I should have stated above, that I harvested most of 
my wheat with Hussey’s excellent machine, which, with 
four horses, cut about twenty acres per day perfectly, 
not leaving a -straw. With this I employed ten men— 
eight binding and two on the machine, one driving and 
one raking off. I recommend that machine to all who 
have large fields to harvest. 
The entries of land in this district, during the last 
current year, nearly doubles the number of acres of the 
previous year, and I believe ail by actual settlers. 
Dixon , III., April 9, 1846. John Shillaber. 
ON THE USE OF LEACHED ASHES. 
Mr. Editor-—! have just received your April num¬ 
ber of the Cultivator, in which you wish, for the bene¬ 
fit of one of your correspondents, H. C. B., some infor. 
mation on the value of ashes, &c., &c., and call upon 
“ chemists to tell. 55 Not being exactly a chemist my¬ 
self, yet having dug into the science a little, for the 
purpose of assisting me in my farming operations, I 
will offer a few remarks:— 
Wood ashes, as you observe, generally do best on 
rather light soils; if they are applied in large quantities, 
either leached or unleached, they have a tendency to 
bring in the red moss, but upon gravelly soils this may 
not be detrimental, as they are usually dry and warm 
enough if there is moss. But upon more moist and 
close soils, ashes may ultimately prove injurious. 
Unleached ashes when first applied to grass, or other 
crops, are much more efficient than leached, owing 
to the much greater amount of alkali, or potash they 
contain, but I do not think the sowing of unleached 
ashes upon land the 'most economical way of using them. 
If a heavy rain immediately follows, the potash is mostly 
washed out and carried off the land, or sinks into the soil 
beyond the reach of the roots of plants. Common potash 
Is very readily dissolved in about its weight of water. If 
a farmer wishes to apply unleached ashes to his grass 
or grain crops, it would.be the better way to mix his 
ashes quite moist with ground gypsum, and let them 
remain for sometime in the heap. The potash of the 
ashes would decompose the gj^psum and sulphate of 
potash would be formed. Sulphate of potash is much 
less soluble than carbonate of potash, as it requires six¬ 
teen pounds of water (at the temperature of 60 degrees) 
to dissolve one pound of sulphate of potash. From this 
fact, the loss of potash by rains would be likely to be 
much less, and for clover, cabbages, turneps, radishes, the 
sulphate is decidedly better than the carbonate of potash. ! 
But I think it a much more economical plan to mix ! 
ashes with swamp muck, peat or decaying vegetabldl 
matter from the woods. All these substances are acid; 
(decomposing vegetable matters always produce acids.) 
These acids want neutralizing before the muck, &c., are 
suitable manures for most crops, (sorrel excepted.) Fre¬ 
quently swamp muck is saturated with sulphate of iron, 
or alumina, that has oozed out in the water from higher 
land. In such cases, the ashes will have the direct ef¬ 
fect to neutralize the acidity of the muck, and make it 
a good manure. 
Leached ashes are highly valued by the farmers upon 
Long Island, but I suspect that most that are used there 
are from the soap-boilers, and I think they are better 
for agricultural purposes than the leached ashes from 
the potash or pearlash factory. In leaching ashes for 
making soap, generally, there is about one peck of lime 
used to each bushel of ashes; but there is very little, 
if any lime, with the leached ashes from the potash. 
There is, after the usual process of leaching ashes for 
soap or potash, a certain quantity of potash left in the 
ashes, in combination with silex. Dr. Dana says, there 
are 50 lbs. of potash in a cord of leached ashes. Expo¬ 
sure to the air decomposes this, and then another por¬ 
tion of alkali can be extracted by water. This partial¬ 
ly explains what you have heard of the Long Island 
farmers, who <c consider the leached as good as the un¬ 
leached ashes, provided they are not used for sometime 
after being leached.” And you farther say, te some 
suppose they attract valuable properties from the at¬ 
mosphere after coming from the leach-tub. Is it so? 
and if any, what are the propertses acquired?” In answer 
to your question, I say yes, it is so, and will explain it. 
If a quantity of leached ashes are piled up under cover 
of a shed exposed to the air, another portion of alkali 
will be set free by the decomposition of the silex, as 
before stated, and the alkali has a strong affinity for 
nitric acid. The air we breathe is mostly composed of 
nitrogen, 79 parts, and 21 parts of oxygen; in these pro¬ 
portions, these two gases are mechanically combined. 
But by well known chemical laws, these two gases 
ehemieally combine in several different proportions, and 
form very different substances from common air. In 
one of their chemical combinations, they unite in the 
proportions of 14 parts nitrogen and 40 parts oxygen, 
and in these proportions it is called nitric acid, and 
mixed with a certain quantity of water it becomes 
hydro-nitric acid, or aquafortis. If common pot or 
pearlash is dissolved in diluted aquafortis, and the 
liquid evaporated, the result will be nitre, or saltpetre. 
But this is an artificial way of making saltpetre—and 
expensive too. 
Nature takes a somewhat different method. As be¬ 
fore stated, the alkali in the leached ashes has a strong 
affinity for nitric acid, and so strong is that affinity or 
attraction, that the nitrogen and oxygen of the atmos¬ 
phere, will very accommodatingly chemically combine 
in the right proportions to form nitric acid, which 
readily unites with the alkali, and .forms nitre or salt¬ 
petre—naturally, and cheap too. The longer the ashes 
are kept, and occasionally moistened and shovelled over, 
the greater the accumulation of nitre. But if the ashes 
are occasionally wet with urine, drainings from the ma¬ 
nure heap, or mixed with night-soil, or decaying animal 
matter—substances all rich in nitrogen—the process will 
be much hastened, and the accumulation of nitre much 
greater in a given time. Perhaps twelve months would 
he a proper time for the ashes to remain. 
A similar process is going on under all houses and 
other buildings; the potash in the felspar and mica of 
our soils, is being slowly but continually dissolving, and 
as there is also a continual ascent of water, by evapora¬ 
tion, each particle of water as it ascends brings with it 
its particle of potash, which is returned in the dry sur¬ 
face soil, which combines with the nitric acid. And 
there are frequently large accumulations of nitre under 
old buildings. In some parts of the East Indies, where 
it seldom or never rains, nitre accumulates (as under 
buildings here,) in such quantities that the soil is 
shovelled up and leached, as we do ashes, and boiled 
down to nitre. Nitrate of lime is formed in vast quan- 
1 titles in the lime caverns of Kentucky. And the dry 
