Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1881-04-29
Agricultural.
ASHES As A FERTILIzER.
How Large n Quantity can be PrOfta-
IbIy AnuIied.


How Large n Quantity can be PrOfitR-
bly, Applied.
A Tennessee farmer writes 10 the Elmira
Farmers Club stating that he can purchase
unleaohed wood ashes within one mile of his
farm for FIVE cents per bushel. Wishing to
improve his land by the application of more
fertilzing material than can be found on his
farm, he asks the club whether unleached
ashes at five cents per bushel will pay.
Whereupon the secretary of the club advises
him to apply the ashes at the rate of twenty
loads of forty bushels each, or 800 bushels TO
the acre, and adds that he considers this a
liberal application If he had omitted to
state that he considered that quantity liber-
al allowance for an acre. some doubt might
have remained as to his opinion on that point
but he is explicit as to 500 bushels to the acre
being liberal application, and non-committal
ON the question whether larger quantity
would not be beneficial Eight hundred
bushels to the acre is five bushels to the
square rod the cost of the ashes, reckoning
nothing for drawing and applying, would be
$40 per acre. Such a sprinkling of ashes
would cost here, per acre, not less than $500.
We might suppose that the recommendation
to use ashes in such quantity was hardly in
tended to be serious, but the secretary says
that he named that amount as limit that the
party asking advice need not fear to approach.
Such counsel from high official of an asso-
citation having national reputation, shows
the need of caution in acting upon the adj
vice of teachers in agriculture. If the Ten.
nessean covers his land with 800 bushels of
ashes to the acre, he will certainly lose part
of the money invested for a fourth of that
amount will have as good an effect as larger
quantity used in one application. Two hun
dred bushels of good, uneached wood ashes
will supply as much potash as would be re-
moved by an average crop of corn in ten or
twelve years, or as much as would be taken
by an average crop of potatoes in sixteen
years, or by grass or grain crops on an aver
age in twenty years. 1t is understood of
course, that potash is the principal fertilizing
ingredient in ashes. heavy crop of corn
removes about 20 lbs of potash from the
soil of an acre. The quantity of potash con-
tanned in good unleached ashes varies from
seven to ten per cent. The potash in 200
bushels of ashes may be estimated at 500 lbs.
The cultivated crops average to take from an
acre about so pounds of potash. An average
crop of wheat takes but 20 lbs Estimating
the average quantity of potash removed from
an acre by the usual crops in cultivation at so
lbs, the 800 bushels of ashes recommended
by the secretary of the Elmira Farmers Club
would supply as much potash as would be re-
moved by continuous cropping for GA years;
that is, provided it remained in the soil in an
available condition for that length of time
But it would not remain in that condition
the sub-soil beyond the reach of plants and
consequently would be dead loss. Brother
farmer down in Tennessee, don't you do it.
If you can buy ashes for five cents a bushel,
all that you invest for them, for one applica-
ton, above $40 per asre, will be money not
much better than thrown away.
Besides the potash, which is the most valu-
able fertilizing part of ashes, there is only the
phosphoric acid which is now considered of
value to most soils as fertilizer. That is, pot
ash and phosphoric acid are the only chemicals
contained in ashes that are not generally found
in sufficientsupplya already in thesoil. The phos-
phoric acid contained in $40 worth of ashes at
fvecents per bushel is as much as is removed
from an acre by four heavy cropso of corn, or by
ten crops ofpotatoes. Buttheph osphoric acidin
ashes is insoluble, and chemists are not agreed
as to its value in that form. Probably moth
ing would be gained by using any quantity of
it above four times the amount that would be
taken up by the crop.