388 BULLETIN OF THE BUSSEY INSTITUTION. 
of a solution of one of the cheap kinds of commercial potashes that are 
prepared from ashes, is mixed with peat, loam, sods, weeds, leaves, 
straw, twigs, or almost any kind of organic matter, the latter quickly 
undergo change, provided the mixture is duly moistened and kept in a 
moderately warm place. By the changes thus induced, peat and many 
other substances which, considered as fertilizing agents, are compara- 
tively inert and slow of action when in their natural or crude state, and 
which if left to themselves would resist decay for a long time, are soon 
converted to more or less powerful manures that are held in high 
estimation by practical men. Not only is the structure or organization 
of the peat or leaves or twigs destroyed by the action of the alkali, 
and by virtue of the fermentation which it induces, but the nitrogenized 
constituents of the inert organic matters undergo such changes that a 
good part of them are made immediately available for the use of grow- 
ing crops. But since the ashes themselves contain a good store of 
potash and phosphoric acid it follows that a compost properly prepared 
by means of ashes must be a complete manure, competent to supply 
plants abundantly with all those kinds of food that are not likely to be 
met with in every agricultural soil. 
There are of course, besides the alkali in wood-ashes, various other 
agents competent to bring about the fermentations and some of the 
other changes upon which the production of compost depends. Dung, 
and urine, fish, flesh, and offal, are all efficient agents, and so are guano, 
soda ash, lime, and mixtures of lime and salt ; but there are few things 
applicable to this purpose that are at once so powerful, so manageable, 
and so intrinsically useful as ashes. When used in this way they lose 
none of their power of feeding plants directly which is due to the pot- 
ash and the phosphoric acid contained in them. Of course, any risk of 
harm that might arise from the injudicious application of ashes directly 
to a field crop, whether in too large quantity or at an inopportune season, 
would be avoided by composting the ashes, since the same corrosive 
power that might injure the crop would be expended or annulled in the 
compost heap. The tendency of ashes to injure seeds and young plants 
depends on the same cause which makes the ashes specially valuable 
in the compost heap as a means of destroying the roots and seeds of 
weeds. 
It is well known that the amount of alkali-power in ashes varies 
considerably in different samples. This fact may be seen on inspecting 
