240 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
AuetfSf 
more, may sound as being a small quantity, when ap" 
plied at twice, to produce lasting benefit to land, 
since we know that other quanities may be laid on ad 
libitum ; To account for this difference, it may be suf¬ 
ficient to notice that in all probability, the lime of 
Morris county is made from the manganese rock. The 
only article on the manganese lime that I remember 
perusing, was a pretty long one in “ Marshall’s Mid¬ 
land Counties,” I think, in describing the husbandry of 
Derbyshire. 
Subsoil Plowing, p, 196.-—I have invariably no¬ 
ticed that in sinking wells, a stratum of blue marl, of 
the thickness of two or three feet, is met with above 
the springs. Might not Mr. Gillet be indebted to 
the marl for his 22 inch corn. Would he test the 
earth with an acid, to ascertain if it were so? A. M. 
Toronto, C, W., June, 1847. 
Fish for Manure.-— J. G. Chadsey, obtained a 
premium of the Rhode Island Society for the Encourage¬ 
ment of Domestic Industry, for a series of experiments 
in relation to the use of fish as manure. He states that 
he has used fish for this purpose eight years in succes¬ 
sion, with the exception of one year. His mode of 
using them is by making them into a compost with 
.muck and soil. For field crops, he allows five bar¬ 
rels of fish to a cord. For roots, he adds to the heap 
ashes and rock-weed. One spring, when digging over 
his compost, he mixed two casks of lime with a part 
of the heap, and tried it by the side of that which con¬ 
tained no lime. No difference was perceptible in the 
crop the first season, but he thought the lime u showed 
itself” the second season. The application of fish in 
a u green state ” to the surface of grass land, he does 
not approve, believing it to be a wasteful method, u as 
the atmosphere gets more than the soil,” and the efflu¬ 
via is very annoying to the neighborhood. Both wet 
and dry soils, he says are benefited by the fish com¬ 
post, but he applies it mostly to dry lands. He states, 
however, that it is quick in its action, and of short du¬ 
ration. He proved this by an experiment. In 1840, 
he divided a piece of land into two equal parts; on 
one part he put eight cords of fish compost per acre; 
on the other part he put an equal quantity of stable and 
hog-pen manure, mixed together, plowing in the ma¬ 
nure on both parts. The two lots were planted to po¬ 
tatoes At harvest, the crop was judged to be fifteen 
per cent, best where the fish compost was used, and 
the potatoes were also fairer and better. After the 
crop was dug, he sowed the lots to rye and grass- 
seed, without manure, and in 1841 he harvested over 
thirty bushels per acre; but the crop was judged to be 
twenty-five per cent, thefflest on the portion manured 
'with the fish compost. In 1842, the scale began to 
turn. The two lots were in clover and herds-grass, 
(timothy,) but the crop was in favor of the stable and 
hog-pen manure by fifteen per cent., and the two fol¬ 
lowing years the part to which the fish compost had 
been applied, produced scarcely anything but sorrel, 
the clover and grass being nearly all dead, while the 
other part continued to produce good crops of hay. In 
1845, he broke up the field and planted it to corn; the 
whole being manured alike; the crop ten per cent, 
best on the part where the stable and hog-pen manure 
had been put. The next year, 1846, the field was 
planted to potatoes, and the yield was alike on the two 
portions. From this experiment, extending through 
. six years, he concludes that fish manure, though high¬ 
ly valuable from its cheapness and fertilizing effects, 
is chiefly absorbed by the first crop, and does not affect 
the soil after the third year from its application. 
It may be proper to remark that the fish alluded to 
are a species caught in imipense numbers along the 
shores of Buzzard’s Bay, Long Island Sound, and per¬ 
haps other places. They are not considered of any 
value except for manure. 
Influence of the Rhubarb Plant in Produ¬ 
cing Gravel. —The fourteenth number of Braith- 
waite’s Retrospect of Practical Medicine and Surgery, 
contains an article on this subject which is calculated 
to alarm those who indulge in the pies and tarts made 
of this palateabie plant. It seems that it furnishes the 
material of one of the most painful and dangerous 
diseases to which the human system is subject. 
The substance of the article is briefly this r—The 
young stalks of rhubarb contain oxalic acid, and hard 
water contains lime; and consequently those who eat 
articles of food made of the plant, and drink such wa¬ 
ter, are introducing into their system the constituent 
ingredients of the mulberry calculus, which is an oxa¬ 
late of lime; and if they are dyspeptic, and unable to 
digest the acid, u are very likely indeed to incur the 
pain and the exceeding peril of a renal concretion of 
that kind.” u Tim oxalate was found in three out of 
four after eating the rhubarb.” 
This, it must be admitted, is rather startling. The 
mulberry calculus is the most painful form of the con¬ 
cretion of the kidneys and bladder. The rhubarb plant 
has come into extensive use, and is generally consider¬ 
ed a very wholesome article of diet. If the danger of 
using it is as great as is represented in the Retrospect, 
it should be universally known. Indeed, there would 
seem to be reason to infer that the danger is not con¬ 
fined to those who use limestone water, for the acid 
will probably combine with other bases as well as with 
lime. The presence of oxalic acid in the plant, percep¬ 
tible to the taste, would lead one to conclude, a priori, 
that the ascribed efiect would result from its use, 
whenever it is not decomposed by the stomach, which 
seems to he the ease in the greater proportion of in¬ 
stances ; and the experiments leave little room to 
doubt its agency in the production of oxalate gravel in 
the urine. J. G. C. York, Pa., June, 1847. 
Fixing Ammonia.— -The May number of your ex¬ 
cellent periodical is before me, but contains no expla¬ 
nation of the u apparent discrepancy,” noticed in your 
April paper, under the head of fixing ammonia. Lest 
so interesting a matter should pass unheeded, I will 
venture an illustration. Gypsum is not, as your cor¬ 
respondent supposes, a super-sulphate, but is strictly a 
neutral salt. The table he quotes, was propounded by 
GeofFry, an old chemist, and was suggested by the fact 
that a combination of any of those bases (alkalies or 
earths) with sulphuric acid, is decomposed by the ad¬ 
dition of any base occurring before it in the table. 
To be fully understood, I copy the table u of the af¬ 
finity which certain bodies have for sulphuric acid,” 
viz:— 
Sulphuric acid. —1. Barytes; 2. Strontia; 3. Po- 
tassa; 4. Soda; 5. Lime; 6. Magnesia; 7. Ammonia. 
Now, if we add magnesia to a solution of sulphate 
of ammonia, the magnesia combines with the sulphu¬ 
ric acid, and the ammonia is set free. Lime, again, 
will take the acid from magnesia, and baryta will sur¬ 
mount all other affinity to obtain the acid. 
“ IRit it is now known,” says Dr. Draper, in his 
Text-Book of Chemistry, pp. 167 and 168, that these 
tables are far from exhibiting the order of affinities; a 
weaker affinity often overcomes a stronger, by reason 
of the intervention of disturbing extraneous causes; 
and tables so constructed, lead, therefore, to contra¬ 
dictory conclusions. Some very simple considerations 
may illustrate this. Potassium, (the metallic base of 
potash,) can take oxygen from carbon at low, tempe¬ 
ratures, or in other words, decompose earbonic acid 
gas, but it by no means follows that the affinity of 
I potassium for oxygen is greater than that of carbon, 
