January 30. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
327 
WEEKLY CALENDAR. 
D 
M 
D 
W 
| JAN. 30—FEB. 5, 1855. 
Weather nf 
Barometer. 
ar London in 
Thermo. Wiud. 
1 
1853. 
Rain i* 
Inches. 
Sun 
Rises. 
Sun 
Sets. 
Moon 
It. & S. 
Moon’s 
Age. 
Clock 
at. Sun. 
Day ot 
Year. 
30 
To 
'Ptinus Fur. 
30.141—30.111 
52—45 
s.w. 
_ 
45 a 7 
43 a 4 
6 38 
12 
13 
34 
30 
31 
w 
Hilary Term ends. 
30.204—30.088 
53—40 
w. 
— 
43 
44 
7 24 
13 
13 
43 
31 
1 
Th 
Podura plumbea; stones. 
29.960—29.939 
53—35 
s.w. 
42 
VII 
IV 
7m56 
14 
13 
51 
32 
2 
F 
Purif. Candl. Day. 
30.2/4—30.119 
44—22 
N.E. 
_ 
40 
48 
rises. 
© 
13 
59 
33 
3 
S 
Podura viridis; buckwheat. 
30.327—30.241 
33—21 
N.E. 
— 
38 
50 
6a 11 
16 
14 
6 
34 
4 
Sun 
Septuagesima Sunday. 
30.071—29.833 
45—35 
S.E. 
10 
37 
52 
7 22 
17 
14 
12 
35 
5 
M 
Silpha opaca. 
29 . 937 — 29.669 
44—40 
S.W. 
— 
35 
54 
8 34 
18 
14 
17 
36 
Meteorology of the Week.— At Chiswick, from observations during the last twenty-eight years, the average highest and lowest tem¬ 
peratures of these days are 44.°2, and 32°, respectively. The greatest heat, 5/°, occurred on the 3rd, in 1850; and the lowest cold, 12° 
on the 4th, in 1830. During the period 111 days were fine, and on 85 rain fell. 
In whatever direction the researches of science com¬ 
bined with practice extend, invariably are they rewarded 
with a beneficial result to the cultivator of the soil; 
while, among other gratifying additions to our know¬ 
ledge, they as unfailingly add to the known illustrations 
of “ The Wisdom of God manifested in the Creation.” 
Among such illustrations is the intimate dependance 
of animals and vegetables upon each other for health 
and strength, for breath and food. If vegetables did 
not give out Oxygen Gas, and if animals did not give 
out Carbonic Acid Gas, they would all be suffocated,— 
for each gives out the gas which is the vital air of the 
other. They purify for each other the atmosphere. 
Then, again, they are continually feeding upon each 
other. Animals live by consuming plants, and almost 
all plants only flourish when they are fed with the 
decaying remains of animals. These remains, whether 
of their flesh or of their excrements, abound in Ammonia, 
or its basis, Nitrogen ; and during the year just closed, 
Mr. Pusoy, from his own practice, and from a close 
consideration of this subject, so important to the 
cultivators of the soil, has come to the conclusion, that 
they may accept this as an axiom,— 
“It is a Law of Nature, that substances 
STRENGTHEN VEGETATION MAINLY BY THEIR CONTENTS 
of Nitrogen.” 
As long since as 1828, we had arrived at a similar 
conclusion, and thus wrote in Loudon’s Gardener's 
Magazine of that year:— 
“ The stimulating powers of excrementitious manures 
arise from the salts of ammonia they contain. Sir H. 
Davy found vegetation assisted by solutions of muriate 
of ammonia (Sal ammoniac), carbonate of ammonia 
(Volatile salt), and acetate of ammonia. Night-soil, 
one of the most beneficial of manures, surpasses all 
others in the abundance of its ammoniacal constituents 
in the proportion of 3 to 1. It may be observed that 
the nearer any animal approaches to man in the nature 
of its food, the more fertilising is the manure it affords. 
I have no doubt that a languishing plant, one, for j 
example, that has been kept very long with its roots 
out of the earth, as the orange trees imported from 
Italy, &c., might be most rapidly recovered, if its stem 
and branches were steeped in a tepid, weak solution of 
corbonate of ammonia; and, when planted, an uncorked 
phial of the solution wero suspended to one of the 
branches, to impregnate the atmosphere slightly with 
it stimulating fumes." 
It is because they abound in Nitrogen that Guano, 
Night-soil, all other excrementitious matters, Woollen 
Rags, Oils, Glue Maker's Refuse, Sugar Maker’s Scum, 
all the salts of Ammonia, and all Nitrates are beneficial 
to plants. 
We shall enter upon this subject fully hereafter, but 
will arouse our reader’s attention especially to the 
importance of the Nitrates, that is of salts containing 
Nitric Acid, by the following able abstract of Mr. 
Pusey's experiments, for which we are indebted to Mr. 
Cutbbert Johnson’s Farmer s Almanack for the present 
year. 
For the information of our non-chemical readers we 
must state, that Nitric Acid, better known to them as 
Aqua-fortis, contains 20 per cent of Nitrogen; and that 
Ammonia, so familiarly known in the form of “ Smelling 
Salts,” contains 75 per cent of Nitrogen :— 
“ Mr Pusey has addressed himself very ably to the question 
of ‘ the natural law by which nitrate of soda acts as a manure, 
and on its substitution for guano 1 (Jour. R. A. 8. vol. xiv., 
p. 374)—a scientific inquiry, the result of which, as he fairly 
remarks, may render the steps of experience more sure, just 
as the sailor, while buffeting with a stormy sea, ascertains his 
course by the abstruse calculations of the astronomer. From 
the result of his own trials, and those of others, he draws the 
conclusion that it is ‘a great law of nature, that substances 
strengthen vegetation mainly by their contents of nitrogen.’ 
His experiments were made with great care on grass lands. 
The quantities of the manures employed aro given in the 
following table. Column I. gives the manure employed on five 
square feet; II., the quantity applied in drachms ; III., the 
water in pints; IV., the effect on grass, perfection being 
taken at 10. The first series were 
post, p. 29)— 
I. II. 
made Sept. 22. 
III. 
( See 
IV. 
Nitrate of soda . 
6 
H .. 
10 
Ditto . 
3 
9 
Nitric acid of commerce. 
8 
— 
8 
>> J > 
6 
— 
8 
>» »> 
4 
— 
8 
2 
— 
. 8 
1 
— 
2 
>» . » 
Second series, October 3— 
0i 
— • • 
0 
Nitrate of soda . 
6 
3 
10 
Nitric acid . 
4 
— 
8 
Ammonia. 
n 
— 
5 
Soda. 
Third series, October 4— 
— 
0 
Nitrate of soda. 
6 
li .. 
10 
Ditto . 
3 
— 
ti 
Nitric acid. 
2 
— 
7 
Ammonia. 
12 
— 
5 
Potash. 
3 
— 
0 
The reader may usefully compare the importance of these 
trials with a mineral acid, for a scientific object, with the 
unmeaning experiments of Arthur Young, in 1782, without 
any certain object or useful result (Annals of Agriculture, 
No. CCCXXXI. Vol. XIII. 
