The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1850-01-15 00:00:00

NO. TV.
Having pointed out some of the principles wi
guide the agriculturist in supplying the ne

rich should
ssary aliment

to plants, so as to insure the proper results of his labour,
we will now proceed to point out certain established facts
respecting the most common crops, and r ill then proceed
to a consideration of the varipus kinds of manures.

First, then, Wheat, which is the most important crop,
absolutely requires lime and potash, combined with the
phosphoric and Eilicic acids. Iron, in excess, is inju-
rious, as, combined with phosphoric acid, it forms phos-
phate of iron, which produces the peculiar disease called
rust, the effects of which are very destructive. Crticife-
rous plants, as turnips, rape, and the cabbage tribe, must
be supplied with sulphur, potash, and lime, in the form

the ' cheapest market' principle be adopted? You must all I
know that the chief element in every article that is consumed of sulphates
by man is labour ; and if you are to buy everything in the The Leguminous crops, such as peas, beans, clover,
cheapest market you must buy your labour in the cheapest tares, &c., thrive upon the nitrogenous compounds—
market. (Cries of ' hear.' and' true.') And what must be the consequently are benefitted by any manure containing
cheapest labour? Is not that labour the cheapest which is ammonia. This material should be in the form of urates
performed by the man who will be satisfied with the smallest
quantity of the necessaries, the conveniencies, and the coin- and sulphates. Phosphates are comparatively useless, as
forts of life ? (Hear, hear.) I ask you whether the labour of they are scarcely taken up by the legumes generally used
the man who works almost, without clothes will not be cheaper as food. The Potato is fed by the phosphates of lime and
than the labour of him who wears good clothes; whether he magnesia, large quantities of which may he added to the
who lives in a mud hovel must not work cheaper than you who soil with advantage. One other circumstance must be
reside in a well-built house; whether the labour of men who i .
taken into consideration in examining soil for particular
are content to exist upon food which we would only throw to
animals, which is the case in many of the countries of Europe, crops—the nature of the subsoil and the capability of the
must nat be cheaper than the labour of men who live as human roots to penetrate. Thus many plants thrive upon a poor
beings should live, in a proper manner ?" and barren soil, which, upon analysis, appears to contain
Mr. Young subsequently gave a practical illustration of little of the necessary constituents for their nourishment.
the working of free trade in his own business of ship-build-
But, upon investigation, it will be found that these plants
possess long wiry roots, capable of penetrating to great
ing, which we would commend to the notice of those who depths in search of the nutriment which rains have
have been deluded by the cry of " cheap bread" : washed from the surface and carried to the subsoil. We
'OI recently built a ship of 600 tons burthen. . The house for must not, therefore, be misled by an analysis of the super-
which I built it is one of the largest mercantile houses in Lon- stratum, but must make ourselves as fully as possible
don, and the partners in that house informed me a few days acquainted with the general physiology of the plant, and
ago that, had it not been for the repeal of the navigation laws,
the composition of both
they had intended to favour me with an order for the construe- The first manure we shall notice that mostcommonly
the,a surface
idth esubso il.
tion of two others of the same tonnage; at the same time they
furnished me with the following advertisement, which they had used—stable dung, which, after all that has been said of
extracted from a Liverpool paper :—Rhe advertisement was the virtues of artificial m tnures or chemical composts, is
forsa
iathe
y friends,building
cannothit ships at agtcvleieayp9ura
tteheinortdheer Baltic.] Now, Nthoewse,
mbyadfaerutpheofmdoesctovmalpuoasbelde ionr a
decomposinggeneral point
vegetable
~.,,veiteawb
l. e
mat-
ships. It a
ti s.
ter, and the fceces and urine of various animals. The ve-
ships. But, observe, if 1 had received the order, I should have
getable matter is principally straw, which by its decompo-
expended amongst the working men in the neighbourhood of
the place where we are now standing, between .e4OOO and .'SCOI)
in wages. (Hear, hear.) I have not the order. 1 shall not get sition furnishes the principal requisites for the renewal of
it. These ships will not be built, and that money will not be land for future cereal crops. The ammonia of the urine
received by the working classes." will supply leguminous crops with nitrogen ; the horse-
This is a very plain statement, and we think the shrewd dung contains large proportions of the phosphates and
working men of this country may draw a useful lesson carbonates of lime, soda, and magnesia. Thus we have a
from it. manure which has most of the requirements for growing
crops ; and if it could be supplied in sufficient quantity,
we should not need the guano deposits of Bolivia, Pata-
gonia. and Ichaboe. It only needs an abundance of farm-
yard manure, and a correct knowledge of the value of the
inorganic manures which are produced in abundance by
the mineral districts of our own kingdom.

POLICE INTELLIGENCE,

STOLEN GOODS.—The two prisoners who were last week
detained on suspicion of having received quantities of
stolen goods, were on Wednesday discharged, the evidence
not warranting their committal. _ I

MISCELLANEA

A WATCH RECOVERED.—On Wednesday, a man named
Fleming was charged with being in possession of a gold
watch, which had been stolen in the street from a lady
named Shapcott, so long ago as October, 1848. The pri-
soner was not, however, the person who took it from her,
and as there was no conclusive evidence against him, he
was discharged, and the watch restored to the owner.

The substance commonly called rice paper by the Chi-
nese, is made from the pith of a plait or tree which grows
principally in the swampy grounds in the province of Sam-
swi, in the northern parts of the island of Formosa, where
it is said to form large forests. The bark and rind are,
previous to exportation, stripped from the pith, which is
called Bok-shung. _ _ _ _ _

AN UNDUTIFUL SON.—Elijah Cobham, son of Mrs.
Cobham, of the Bear's Paw Inu and Eating House, was
on Wednesday complained of as being riotous and disor-
derly, on frequent occasions in his mother's house, and
threatened to take the life of her husband. He was
bound over in two sureties of £2O to keep the peace, or to
be, in default, imprisoned for three months.
UNWHOLESOME MEAT.—On F:iday, a butcher named
Clarke was charged with exposing 871 b. of bad pork in St.
John's Market, and was fined Ds. and costs.

On the Chemical Constitution of Poppy Seeds. By
M. Sace.—The author of the memoir from which the
present extract is made, has endeavoured to show that in
order to obtain exact analysis of organic matters, it is ne-
cessary to determine both their ultimate principles, as well
as their immediate constituents. He then gives the com-
position of the seed, the oil, and the cake of the poppy.
He points out the fact that poppy seeds are perfectly
harmless, useful as food, and that they contain a volatile
fatty substance. The ashes of poppy seeds, and it is a
remarkable fact, yield very little alkaline matter, but in
its place a great deal of lime and phosphoric acid : this
composition, compared with that of the ashes of the fir,
published by the author last April, in the " Annales de
Chimie," seems to show that in calcareous soils, lime
almost completely takes the place of the alkalies in the
ashes of plants. By calculations made from amtlysesot
is proved too that the whole of the nitrogen contained in
the poppy seeds, is not there in the form of organizedi
matter. If this should prove to be generally true, it s
clear that the nutritive value of organized substances can-
not be ascertained by merely determining the quantity of
nitrogen they contain.— Comples Rendus.
The meadows in the neighbourhood of glinburgh
irri-
gated by the sewa:<e from the town, yield four to six
crops of grass annually, of excellent quality, and are let at
rates varying from £24 to £3O par acre. One hundred
and ten acres belonging to a Mr. Miller, in 1827 yielded a
clear profit of £2,010; and in 1826 part of the Earl of
Moray's meadows fetched £57 per acre. So much for
manure which is too generally allowed to pollute rivers and
brooks.—Farmer's Journal.

COLLISION ON THE RIVER.—We last week noticed
that during the dense fog of Monday week, the Queen,
Woodside steamer, got into contact with the schooner
Rambler, of Wicklow, then at anchor near the Birkenhead
docks. The case was brought before Mr. Rushton. on
Friday, the owner of the schooner cla.ming £l5 for the
cost of repairs. It appeared, however, las intimated by
us last week,) that the Queen was not to blame, the
schooner having rung no fog bell, otherwise the accident
would have been avoided. Mr. Rushton said that the
crew of the schooner had been culpably negligent, and the
case was therefore dismissed.

FRAUD ON AN EMIGRANT.—On Friday a poor Irish
emigrant charged a fellow named Anderson with defraud-
ing him of three sovereigns. The prisoner represented
himself as the captain of the Catharine, in which the emi-
grant was to sail, and by promise of favours on the voy-
age, succeeded in ingratiating himself into the good opinion
of his dupe.

CHARGE AGAINST A CAPTAIN.—The captain of the
emigrant ship Catherine, appeared before Mr. Rushton,
on Friday to answer a charge of refusing to afford the
proper facilities to George Ramsden, the emigration offi-
cer, to inspect the ship. Mr. Aspinall appeared for the
defence, and the charge resolving itself into a case of
abuse against the captain, the complaint for which the
summons was issued was dismissed.
SERIOUS ROBBERY.—On Friday two women of ill-fame
were charged with knocking down the captain of a
schooner, named Tsaac Stones, and abstracting from his
pockets £3B and his watch. The robbery was perpetra-
ted in Spitalfields on Wednesday night, and one of the
prisoners and another woman took the money to a publi-
can in the neighbourhood, named Garvey, to keep for
them. They had subsequently drawn all but £l5, which
was handed over to the police. Mr. Garvey was repri-
manded by Mr. Rushton for the part be had taken in the
affair; but the case was not fully gone into in consequence
of the prosecutor fainting in court, and it is supposed that
he bad been drugged by the women.

OPERATIONS FOR THE WXgK.
The greenhouse plants require careful watching, to see
that mildew is kept under; chrysanthemums are very
subject to it, and should be removed to other quarters as
soon as they have ceased flowering, as the disease is apt
to spread to other plants. Keep the same temperature
both in stove and greenhouse, recommended in our last.

ANSWERS TO CORRESPO NTIENTS.
J. R.—We have not yet seen Curtis's Beauties of the
Rose. We expect to receive it in a week or two, and
will then give you our opinion of its merits. We agree
with you that no work is more needed ; and, if well car-
ried out, it will be invaluable.
Wooltonian.—Your Rose is Smith's Yellow Noisette ;
by no means uncommon even at this season. The Cyclamen
is a white variety of C. Perucum.