The Vermont transcript. [volume] (St. Albans, Vt.) 1864-1870, 1866-07-13
farmers department.
Charcoal as q Fertilizer.

We made alluslOn Oh u lutt pVO"SiOh
10 the use of charcoal for fcrtilizing
nurposes. and to mistaken views of
its mode of action While this sub
stance is often mentioned in journals
ms useful in composts, and as having
certain manurial value, what its
real value is, is little known to the
agricultural community ut large. 1t
is well to have this somewhat more
determined than it is now, that it may
not be either over or undervalued
when it may happen to be more or
less accessible.
In the first place. charcoal is exceed
inplv indestructible. That this fact
is familiar enough, we see in the very
common practice of charring fence
posts before putting them in the
ground, to preserve the parts more
especially exposed to decay. 1t is in
fact one of the most indestructible of
nil substances. If air is excluded it
suffers no change when exposed to
heat of the greatest intensity. Mois-
ture has no effect, and no chemical
agent will act upon it, 1t does not,
then, seem probable that it has of it.
self any valuable properties as fer
tilizer. 1t is hardly possible that it
can in any given time go through
process of decomposition which will
fit it for the food of plants.
But charcoal is a porous body, and
in common with other porous sub
stances has the power of absorbing
and condensing gases in greater or
less degree After it has been heated
to redness and cooled without expos
ure to the air, it will absorb ninety
times its own bulk of ammoniacal gas.
1t is upon this property of absorbing
gases that its value as manure de-
ponds. A cubic inch of charcoal is
capable of condensing within its pores
ninety cubic inches of ammonia.
Then the practical question arises
how the ammonia is to become availa-
BILE as the food of plants, locked up
within the pores of this indestructible
substance. We attach much impor-
lance to what is called the vital power
of the roots of plants, but it does not
appear that they have power to act
except or the mere surfaces with
which they come in contact The
proper answer to the question is the
greater absorbing power of water.
Water absorbs, at the common tenn
perature and pressure, from seven to
eight hundred times its volume of am
moniacal gas, and will not part with
the whole of it when boiled. Its pow
err of absorption, as compared with
charcoal, is as eight hundred to
ninety, and the necessary result, when
the two substances come i'll contact, is
that the latter gives up its store to the
former. The ammonia is simply
washed out of the charcoal by the
first shower of rain, and transferred
to the surface soil, to be made availa-
BILE as the food of plants. When this
occurs, the pores of the charcoal are
full of water, and only when this
evaporates, or i'll other words, when
the charcoal dries, it is capable of alb
sorbing ammonia as before. 1t is
manifest, then, it must be in position
to dry after being washed out, if we
would have it continue its good Off
ces. During the heat of summer,
when the atmosphere is most charged
with ammonia, it is most capable of
gathering this valuable gas, for it is
then that it is most quickly dried af-
ter being washed by shower. But
it must, of course, be on the surface,
if we would have it answer our pur-
pose in this respect.
The end gained by the use Of char
coal in compost heap is different
from that named above, and depends
on a different principle altogether
1t is not by absorbing and condensine
the gases which arise from decom-
posing dung heap that it is valuable
in this case, but rather by checking
decomposing If meat, when it has
begun to putrefy, be packed down il
charcoal, it is not only deprived of al
bad smell, but the process of putre
faction is Immediately stopped. n,
more gases are formed, and, of course
none can be absorbed. Its effect il
to stop the process of decay. In til,
same manner any animal or vegetabl,
substance, if exposed to the action o
charcoal, may be preserved unchange,
for any length of time. Thus whel
used III the compost heap, all the sub
stances it is brought in contact witt
are brought under its influence, an,
when applied to the soil are gradual
separated from it by the rains whic
fan upon them, and then undergo tn
decay which fits them to become til
food Of wheat Baltimore Sun.