Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1873-06-26
THE Study OF PLANT room.

Every farmer aud gardner should study
carefully and earnestly, plant food, for
knowledge of it is the foundation of all
scientific agriculture. When a horse eats
100 pounds of hay or fodder, and 80 pounds
of corn or oats, what will be the weight Of
the solids that escape from his system, and
become available as manure on the farm?
Not many men who cultivate the earth in
fields, gardens and orchards can answer the
above question; YET no fertilizer is more
common, or has been longer in use, than
ono produced from hay and grass, corn
fodder, corn, oats, and oat-straw, consumed
by farm stock. B5ussingault, man of
science, a skilfnl analyiticsl chemist, and
large farmer ia AlsAce (the province recent
" ceeded by France to Germany balanced
q farm horse by regular feeding so that he
neither gained nor lost weight from
day to day. He was placed in
condition where all his Groupings,
solid and liquid, were saved to be
dried, weighed and analyzsd, while all food
carefully weighed, and samples analysed.
In normal condition in "a hours the horse
consumed 20 lbs of hay, lbs of cats and
43 lbs ofwster; in all 90 pounds. The
dry matter taken into the system was %
lbs OF. The dry matter voided was IL
lbs II q. As the horse gained DO weight,
nearly half Of bis food was burnt 70 keep up
animal h at night aud day; the catbonic
acid gas and7apor formed by this combustion
escapes from the blood through the lungs
into the atmosphere. Bousingault and
Paven fund that the air expelled from the
wind p.pe Of man and beast in breathing
contains in airy given volume, about 100
times more carbonic acid than pure air con-
taius when it enters the organs of respira-
ton. All animal heal is generated by the
combus ion of organized elements in food,
that reduces the weight of dried excrements
to nearly one half of that of the food con-
sumed 10 form them.
The horse consumed in bay and oats 10
lbs. OF. of carbon !n-24 hours, Will his
dung and urine contained only lbs. Z OF.
II dwt. Of carbon. These figures indicate
that not far from seven tenths of cOmbusti-
BILE carbon in food must escape either
through ores of the skin, or in well-kDown
heavy, poisonous gas that passes out from
the lungs in breathing. The excre 7 ents of
a COW, balanced aud fed in similar man
per, contained a fraction over half the car
bon consumed in her food When vegeta-
bles and animals die sad rot on the ground
a large part of their carbon passes into the
atmosphere as carbonic acid, like gas from
a large beer-tub. All the forests and coal
deposits on The globe doubtless derived
their carbon from the atmosphere; and it is
probable that heated lime rock deep in the
earth gives eff vast quantities of carboGic
arid which escapes into the air partly in &C.
tive volcanoes, and partly in numerous gas
fountains, some of VIII en- are well
known. The atmosphere evidently con-
tains an inexhaustible supply of three i'm
portant constituents Of all plants, namely,
CAIDOus JAY Ahu ny " OSCA -sAAS WV Ae5o
named form water The reason why ton
of stable manure is worth only dollar is,
that nearly all Of it is carbon and water.
And the reason why ton of Peruvian
guano is worth eighty dollars is, because
carbon and water which agricultural plsnts
can obtain from the air without cost, are
left out; while phosphorus acid and assimi-
liable nitrogen abound. The farmer wants
from the sea, and all cities and villages,
those precious elements in our daily food,
flesh, brains and bones, which neither poor
land, nor the rains from heaven, nor com
mon air supplies in adequate quantities.
Bid common air, water aud pure sand and
clay meet the wants of crops; it is plain that
no manure would be needed on any farm.
But one hundred million acres are turned
ou', and temporarily abandoned; old fields