BULLETIN OF THE BUSSEY INSTITUTION. 281 
and carbonate of lime in various forms. But the action of alkalies 
upon peat and loam is not merely to disintegrate or rot the organic 
matters ; they tend furthermore to combine with them. Some of the 
compounds thus formed with the alkalies proper — viz., potash, soda, 
and their carbonates—are freely soluble in water;* and although 
these soluble compounds, on moving about in the soil, are undoubtedly 
soon changed to combinations that are far less soluble in mere water, 
that is no more than happens to all artificial fertilizers with the single 
exception of the nitrates; and there is on that account no reason to 
doubt but that the plant roots can find means to feed upon them. 
Lime, also, is known to combine directly with a great variety of nitro- 
genous matters to form useful manures, though, as a general rule, 
these compounds are difficultly soluble in water by itselff According 
to Johnson,{ it is quite possible to dissolve the whole of the humus in 
some kinds of brown peat by means of an alkali. This observer 
found, in several instances, that nothing but a residue of cellulose was 
left after the peat had been repeatedly treated with a dilute solution of 
earbonate of soda. But as Mulder (Joc. cit.), and Detmer § have shown, 
the matter thus dissolved is distinctly nitrogenized. 
It may here be remarked that practical farming experience, with 
* See Mulder, G. J., “‘ Die Chemie der Ackerkrume,” Berlin, 1863, 1. pp. 
328, 333. Johnson, S. W., “ Peat and its Uses,” New York, 1866, pp. 85, 89. 
A number of interesting experiments upon the use as manure of compounds 
such as are here in question were made long ago by Professor Lampadius, of 
Freiberg in Saxony. (See, for example, Erdmann’s “ Journal fiir tech. und 6k. 
Chemie, 1832, 15. pp. 291, 306, and the later volumes of that journal and its suc- 
cessor, the “ Journal fiir praktische Chemie,” notably the volume for 1835, 5. 
488). The practical advantages to be gained by composting peat and other 
forms of humus with ashes, lime, and other kinds of alkalies, are well known 
to farmers, and have been strongly insisted upon in this country by the late Dr. 
S. L. Dana, of Lowell (in his “Muck Manual for Farmers ’’), and by others. 
But the earlier observers were in no position to appreciate the significance of the 
nitrogen of the peat, or to form just conceptions as to the mode of action of the 
composts they prepared from it. 
+ Compare Knop, in his ‘‘ Lehrbuch der Agricultur-Chemie,” Leipzig, 1868, 
1. pp. 440, 444, 453 ; and Steeckhardt, in his ‘‘ Chemische Ackersmann,” 1860, 6. 
211. 
t “ How Crops Feed,” p. 225, note. So, too, De Saussure (‘‘ Recherches 
Chimiques sur la Végétation,” Paris, 1804, p. 167). “La potasse et la soude 
dissolvent presqu’en totalité le terreau végétal.” Some kinds of humus, how- 
ever, are far less soluble in alkali than others. See Muldér; also Detmer, “ Die 
landwirthschaftlichen Versuchs-Stationen,” 1871, 14. 265. 
§ “Die landwirthschaftlichen Versuchs-Stationen,” 1871, 14. 254, 258. 
VOL. I. 36 
