Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1879-09-03
Ammonia In Muck.

There seems to be an issue" raised
between those who plume themselves upon
being practical " farmers (if any of
those gentlemen should undertake to pass
through course of chemical study we
fancy they would conclude that chemists
were "practical men before they got
through with iO, and the chemists upon
the quantity Of ammonia contained in peat
or muck. Persons who would at once
resort to chemist to discern whether n
death were caused by arsenic or strych-
nine, though not hundredth part of one
per cent of the poison was contained in
the tissues of the body, affect to believe
that chemists are wrong when they state
that there is often four or five per cent of
ammonia in dry peat. The reason is that
they have failed to get the results from
the application of muck that they get
from guano or other ammoniacal fertilz-
ers.
Now one of the most abundant sources
of the ammonia used in commercial fer
tilizers is the coal out of which illuminate
ing gas is made. From the gas works
hundreds of tons of sulphate of ammonia
are purchased for fertilzng purposes, all
of this ammonia coming from the coal in
the process of gas-making. Yet pulver-
lied coal is of no value as fertilizer.
Biologists tell us that the coal mines are
simply old peat bogs that have been bur.
led, perhaps for millions of years, and
consolidated by time and the weight of
superincumbent material. There is plenty
of ammonia in peat after it is pressed into
coal, certainly, for those despised chemists
make a good thing by extracting it and
selling it to us practical farmers at
twenty cents pound, at which price
find it cheap manure.
Further than this-experiments have
been made in the manufacture of gas d-
rectly from peat, and though not so cheap
and handy coal, it is found to have the
same composition, to yield good gas in
abundance, and also large percentage of
ammonia. This is fact as abundantly
demonstrated by the coal chemists as the
fact that maple sap contains sugar has
been demonstrated by our "practical -
chemists of the " sugar place"
Why. then, do we fail to get the benefit
of this ammonia when we dig up the
muck and apply it to the land? For the
same reason that coal is of no use for the
same purpose. The ammonia is there.
but not in form available to growing
plants. 1t is held in insoluble combina-
lions by the acids of the peat. A little of
that knowledge which is thought to be SO
dangerous to farmers" book " knowl-
edge, if you will, but yet knowledge that
had 10 be acquired by the hard labor of
"practcal " chemists before it could be
got into hooks-would have made this all
plain to the critics who like to pounce on
these misunderstood statements in order
to show the Ignorance of those writers,
forgetful that they may accidentally ex-
pose their own.
Uncomposted peat is almost entirely
insouble, and therefore inert as q fertilizer.
Composted with stable manure it becomes
slowly and partially soluble. Composted
with alkaline substances, lime or potash,
it becomes more active; but there is no
cheap way yet discovered to make the
ammonia of peat fully and Immediately
available, so as to show the striking results
that follow the application of II fertilizer
containing an equal percentage of soluble
ammonia. But from actual "practical -
experience | am induced to believe that
when muck rich in ammonia is conf
posted with sufficient quantity of lime
or ashes, nearly all of its ammonia be-
comes available Con n light soiD within
three years time.
L. II. HOSKINS.