160 BULLETIN OF THE BUSSEY INSTITUTION. 
The crops harvested April 3, 1876, 
and dried at 90° to 100° C. 
Contents of the Jars. 
Weighed Grew to Had 
grammes height seeds. 
Ashes and rain-water. . . . . 0.275 aa xe 61/7 
2 
x e oy Nn: Akh ae eeamrcuene 0.220 5 
Sand and rain-water ..... 0.280 ty 3 0.2 fi’rs 
” ” ” wie 6 0.320 5s 6h «8 5 
Mean weight of the ash crops. of e 0.248 
sf 4) SONG et eee 0.300 
Ashes and nitrate of lime’... .66 * 1) 22 
. 1 
Sand and nitrate of lime - : : 
” 99 a 99 ” » - e bd 
Total weight of the twoashcrops . 
” ” ” yy Sand 4, . . 
urged in the former paper. But, as several friends have suggested to 
me, no mention was there made of the applicability of coal ashes for 
the-amelioration of stiff clays. It is, however, a matter of experience T 
that coal ashes are much better than sand for improving the physical 
condition of clay lands, because they are fine and light and friable, 
and because their particles, unlike those of sand, do not tend to sift out 
and separate themselves from the clay. The application of coal ashes 
to clay lands is manifestly somewhat akin to the old methods of agri- 
culture, known as “clay burning” and as “paring and, burning,” in 
that the action of the fire served to destroy the plasticity of a quantity 
of the crude clay, and that the burnt clay, when mixed with the orig- 
inal soil by processes of tillage, greatly improved its character. The 
soil was not only less cohesive and less retentive of moisture than 
before, but, comparatively speaking, light and crumbly. As was said 
long ago by Marshall,{ when describing the process of paring and 
burning: “Its effect in improving the contexture of strong cohesive 
soils has escaped general notice. Yet how could art devise an ingre- 
dient more likely to give openness and freedom to a closely textured 
soil than rough, porous, unperishable ashes? ” 
* Only two plants. 
t+ Compare, for example, “New England Farmer,” 1842, 21. 180, and 
1845, 24. 2. 
t+ Rural Economy of Yorkshire, 1796, 1. 293. 
