A PRIZE ESSAY. 
17 
me turn 07 er a few shovelfuls, and fork out the main 
points to which I wish to call your attention. 
1st. That all plants find in stable manure everything 
they want. 
2d. That stable manure consists of water, coal, and 
salts. 
3d. That these, water, coal, and salts, consist in all 
plants of certain substances, in number fifteen, which 
are called, 
1. Oxygen, 2. Hydrogen, 3. Nitrogen, 4. Carbon, 
5. Sulphur, 6. Phosphorus, 7. Potash, 8. Soda, 9. Lime, 
10. Magnesia, 11. Alumina, or clay, 12. Iron, 13 
Manganese, 14. Chlorine, which last, as we have said, 
forms about one half the weight of common salt, 15. 
Jjiilex. And if you always associate with the word 
chlorine, the fertilizing properties of common salt, you 
will, perhaps, have as good an idea of this substance 
as a farmer need have, to understand the action of 
chlorine. 
4th. These fifteen substances may be divided into 
four classes. 
(1.) The airy or gases, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, 
and chlorine. 
(2.) The earths and metals, lime, clay, magnesia, 
iron, manganese, and silex. 
(3.) The alkalies, potash and soda. 
(4.) The combustibles, carbon, sulphur, and phos¬ 
phorus. 
You may be surprised that I have not turned up 
ammonia, but this exists in plants as hydrogen and 
nitrogen. 
5th. The term salt includes a vast variety of sub¬ 
stances, formed of alkalies, earths, and metals, com¬ 
bined with acids. Fix well the meaning of this term 
in your mind, and remember the distinction pointed 
out, that some salts are volatile, and act quick in 
manure, and others are fixed, and act slower. 
6th, When plants die or decay, they return to the 
earth or air these fifteen substances. Those returned 
