BULLETIN OF THE BUSSEY INSTITUTION. 159 
No. 14. — Results obtained on growing Buckwheat in Equal 
Weights of Pit-Sand and of Coal-Ashes. By F. H. 
Storer, Professor of Agricultural Chemistry. 
SoME experiments made at this laboratory in 1872-73 on the 
agricultural value of the ashes of anthracite, while showing that the 
ashes were slightly inferior to an equal bulk of pit-sand, such as 
underlies the plain field of the Bussey Institution, left a doubt whether, 
if taken weight for weight, the coal ashes might not be able to sup- 
port better crops than the pit-sand.* 
I have recently tried an experiment bearing upon this point, with 
the result that no appreciable difference between the fertility of the 
two materials was detected. This experiment was as follows :— 
Four tall, narrow glass beakers were chosen as jars in which to put 
the coal ashes; and four shorter, narrow beakers were taken for the 
pit-sand. 700 grammes of coal ashes, such as were used in the experi- 
ments described on page 59, were placed in each of the tall jars; and 
700 grammes of pit-sand, such as was used in the earlier experiments, 
were placed in each of the shorter jars. Three buckwheat seeds 
were planted in each jar. Jars A and B sand, and A and B ashes, 
were watered with rain-water, and the other four jars with a solu- 
tion of nitrate of lime (1 gramme to the litre), after the young plants 
had fairly started. It happened that one seed failed to germinate in 
one of the ash jars, and another in one of the sand jars that were to be 
watered with nitrate of lime. ‘These dead seeds were removed, but 
not replaced; so that in each of the pairs of jars that were watered 
with the nitrate of lime, one jar carried but two plants, while the other 
had three; and the remark applies of course both to the ashes and the 
sand. The results of these trials are given in the following table : — 
These figures simply re-enforce the conclusions previously arrived 
at (see page 66 of Vol. I.), and strengthen the conviction that, in so 
far as their chemical composition is concerned, the ashes of anthracite 
can have little, if any, significance in agriculture. 
That coal ashes may serve as well as sand, or perhaps rather better 
than most sands, for the mechanical improvement of peaty soils, was 
* Compare Bussey Bulletin, 1. 66. 
