The daily exchange. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1858-1861, 1859-09-13
HOW DROUGHT BENEFITS THE SOIL

DRY and hot! Hot and dry How much every
thing suffers for the want of rain!" exclams the
farmer the empty clouds melt day BY day from
his sight: but chemical science shows us that
drought are of the material causes to restore the
constituents OF crops, and renovate long cultivated
soils. The ''why and wherefore" of this we NAV
here reproduce, condensed from q paper by Prof.
Higgins, chemist of the State Agricultural Society
of Maryland:
The loss of mineral matter from the soil results
from the fact that it is taken up by growing crops
and also carried away by the surface water flowing
into streams, and thence into the sea. These two
causes are always in operation and were there no
sources of supply, would in time render the earth
barren waste. The diminution which arises from
continued cropping is in part restored by manures
and the same is true of the constituents washed
from the soil by surface draining; but this supply
is small, uncertain and of limited application and
Providence has provided natural means to restore
lost mineral constituents to arabic land. At
intervals, drOughts occur to bring up from the
deeper undersoil, food for the use of plants when
the rains shall again fall to dissolve and bring them
into action.
A DIR ught acts unon the moisture in the earth as
follows:
During dry weather, a continual evaporation
takes place from the surface soil, above that sup
piled by rain and dew, which creates a vacuum $50
far as the water in the surface soil is concerned
that is at once filed by water rising from the sub
soll-extending deeper and deeper the drought
continues and the moisture is inhaled-a circula-
tlon OF water in the earth the reverse of that
WHICH taxes place IN wet weather. 1hlS progress
to the surface of the water in the earth manfests
itself strikingly in the drying up of springs and
wells, and streams which supported by springs
Not only is water thus brought to the surface of
the earth but also all that the water holds in solu-
tion. There salts of lime and magnesia of
potash and soda, indeed whatever the subsoil or
top strata OF the earth may contain. The water
on reaching the surface is evaporated, but leaves
behind its lime and potash, its phosphates scates
carbonates and salts-a indispensable to the growth
OF the vegetable products of the farm. Rain water
as it falls, will dissolve but very small portion of
some of those substances; but when it sinks into
the earth, it then becomes strongly imbubed with
carbonc acid from the decomposition of vegetable
matter in the soil, and thus acquires the property
OF readily dissolving minerals on which before it
could have little efect.-Scientifc artisan.
The business of Memphis has increased fully
hirty-three per cent. within the past year. 1t has
now reached an aggregate of nearly $40 900 900 per
annum:-COtton receipts at the port of Memphis
for the year ending September l, 1859 3254sO
bales; previous year. 243 00O increase 81 4sO. The
value of the crop for the year just closed cannot be
accurately known, but will not fall much below
SlS,OOO, ,OOo.-Nemphis Inquirer.
At celebration of the Portland Me-, Odd Eel
lows, on Tuesday, the Secretary of the Grand
Lodge stated that during the seventeen years since
the establishment of the order in that State it had
expended upwards of sixty thousand dollars for
the relief of sick and destitute members. The
amount of relief granted in the United States the
last year, he stated, not far from four hundred
thousand dollars.
Judge Mclean, of the United States Suprema
Court il on visit to the City Of st. Paul.