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BULLETIN OF THE BUSSEY INSTITUTION. 191 
No. 10.— On the Average Amounts of Potash and Phosphoric 
Acid contained in Wood-ashes from Household Fires. By 
F. H. Storer, Professor of Agricultural Chemistry. 
AmoneG the potassic fertilizers, wood-ashes will undoubtedly long 
maintain a prominent place, because of their very general diffusion. A 
manure produced at the farm or in factories, towns, or villages near the 
farm, must, as a matter of course, be preferred for several reasons to 
any competitor that has to be brought from a distance. It is evidently 
a matter of some importance, however, to determine, with as much pre- 
cision as may be possible, just what the advantages of using the domestic 
product really are, and to compare it carefully with the other varieties 
of manure that might be used instead of it. In this view, I have 
thought it worth the while to have a number of different samples of 
‘wood-ashes subjected to analysis for the purpose of determining, in the 
first place, what are the average amounts of potash and phosphoric acid 
contained in ashes such as are produced in New England. If these 
data were once definitely fixed, the farmer would be in so far better 
able than he is now to contrast the money worth of ashes with that of 
the yarious Stassfurt salts and the other potassic fertilizers. 
The kinds of ashes examined, and their sources, will appear from the 
following list. ‘The numbers in the list correspond with those in the 
first column of the table of analytic results : — 
DESCRIPTION OF THE SAMPLES OF ASHES. 
No. I. From a barrel of ‘‘household ashes’”’ taken from a soap- 
boiler’s store at Southbridge, Mass., in April, 1873. The soapboiler 
*‘ collects his ashes from different families in and around the village, 
and the wood usually burned in this locality may be taken as about 
one half maple, one quarter white and red oak, and one quarter white 
pine.”’ 
II. From another barrel of household ashes, obtained from the South- 
bridge soapboiler, in April, 1874. 
Ill. From a hot-air furnace in the house of Dr. George Derby, Bos- 
ton. ‘The furnace was fed with hard wood, a mixture of beech, birch, 
and maple, brought from St. Mary’s Bay, Bear River, Cornwallis, Nova 
Scotia. 
