The Camden weekly journal. [volume] (Camden, South-Carolina) 1853-1861, 1854-05-02
Retrospective and Prospective.

Having for years occupied portion of win.
ter's short days and long evenings in reviewing
the past, and devsing plans OF operation tor
the future, | am every season adding few
items to that knowledge which / consider so
well proved and confirmed by experience as to
be safe, reliable and useful as guide in prac,
teal operations. Thinking that some of the
contributions which the past season has made
to this stock of reliable and useful knowledge
might be of service to some of my brethren Of
the agricultural community, cheerfully devote
an hour to the statement of o few of them.
Among the items of knowledge which the
past season has either taught for the first time,
or confirmed by additional evidence, we would
name this-that ammonia can very certainly
be prevented from escaping from heaps Of
horse or other manure by sprinkling thereon
some gypsum and a solution of sulphuric acid.
Having no convenient way of protecting the
manure from the horse stable, and confident
that all the ammonia which our nostrils inform.
ed US was making its escape from the manure
heap near the stable, was so much dead loss to
US, we put small keg of plaster into the sta.
BILE so as to be convenient whenever the smell
or any other circumstances should remind us
of our duty to our fertilziug treasures. Two
or three times week, or when the escaping
ammonia assaulted our nostrils, we sprinkled
handful or two of plaster upon the manure
heap, and generally in the course Of the same
day we scattered over it abox fourth part of
teacupful of sui phuric acid or vitriol. After
these applications We could detect no such
smell as before, and concluded, therefore, that
the ammonia had in some way been fixed so
that it could no longer make its escape Agri-
cultural chemists would call this, suppose,
changing the carbonate Of ammonia into the
sulphate. Whatever it may be called in chemi-
cal phraseology, we are satisfied that is an ef-
fectual mode of preventing evaporation and
loss, which affect equally the farmers crops
and pockets. If some of your readers would
try the>experiment of applying plaster and wa
ter slightly acidulated with oil Of vitriol, we
should probably heQ from them, some year or
two hence, such favorable reports of the prac
tice as would persuade all, save the LATEST, to
adopt it.
or one thing more the experienced of the past
season has firmly convinced US. We are all
satisfied that the peaty matter thrown out of
our bitches, carried on and spread over gar
den of sandy soil, has greatly increased its
productiveness For some years it had seemed
as if all the soap suds and other manures put
upon the garden produced no fertiIizing effect.
The sandy soil, we supposed, had no power of
retaining the iertilizing qualities of the manures
applied, but suffered them to escape by leach
ing or evaporation or both. The addition Of
peaty matter from our bitches has changed the
appearance of things very materially. In the
additional raukness of growth and richness of
verdurc or r.coior, we can now see that our fer
,ilizers are not wasted as before. TO satisfy
ourselves and a skeptical neghbor we put some
of the garden soil as it used to be, and some
with the admixture into another. We poured
over each solution of hen manure, and after
wards solution Of saleratus. In what escaped
from the hole in the bottom Of the pot in the
first, we could detect the characteristics of the
solution used whereas what escaped or leaked
from the other was almost entirely destitute of
taste, colcr or SMELL Country Gent