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when barn yard manure will be reduced to ashes, and the ashes alone 
applied to the land, the inorganic matter of the manure being considered 
by them to be the most valuable, or only essential part of it required 
from the soil for the nourishment of plants. It may reasonably be 
doubted whether this prediction will ever be fulfilled ; nevertheless it 
serves to show how highly ashes derived from plants are valued by’some 
men—agricultural chemists of no mean fame—and consequently how de¬ 
sirable and necessary it is to preserve and apply them understandingly. 
Ashes will vary much in their composition according to the kind of plant; 
they, however, all contain certain substances which are useful and essen¬ 
tial to all plants alike. Many of these substances, especially the alkaline 
salts, are readily soluble in w r ater as every housewife knows ; it is there¬ 
fore requisite that ashes intended for manure should invariably be kept 
dry till they are to be used. The most economical mode of applying 
ashes is to scatter them on the land, in the same manner as plaster or 
lime is applied. They may be mixed with muck, if used soon after mix¬ 
ing ; but they should never in their fresh state be added to farm-yard 
manure, because they would drive off the ammonia it contains. 
Chamber-lye is another valuable fertilizer, causing too frequently a 
perfect nuisance round farm-houses during the hot months of summer. 
This, too, should be cared for. A heap of dry muck, or muck mixed 
with charcoal, or charcoal dust put into a barrel in some out-of-the-way 
place near the house, and saturated with urine, would make no trifling 
addition to our annual supply of manure. This I know will be consid¬ 
ered by some a small matter for a farmer to attend to. A cell also is a 
very small matter, requiring a microscope of high powers to distinguish 
it, but an aggregate of cells build up a plant; so attention to what may 
be considered trifles in farming, may ultimately produce no trifling result. 
Human urine is rich in substances producing ammonia, it also contains 
phosphates and alkaline salts. 
I entertain a very high opinion of charcoal a,s a manure, and I have 
generally contrived when clearing land to burn up the brush when snow 
was upon the ground, in order that I might be able to shovel snow on 
fires and preseve as much of the brush as possible in the state of char¬ 
coal ; soon after the fires were extinguished, the ashes and charcoal were 
scattered over the land. This requires but little time and labor, and I 
