The Somerset reporter., 1885-10-14
Wood Ashes.
ny PROF. r.. C KEpzIE, OF MICHIGAN
IN Ploughmdn.

Among the most common and the
most valuable of special manures |
place wood ashes. The amount of
ash, and its relative composition,
vary with the kind and part of veg
table burned, but we may safely
take the ash of the body of a beech
tree as representing the average
composition of wood ashes. One
bushel of ashes represents about two
and one-half tons of dry body wood.
Wood ashes contains all the requir-
ed elements of plant nutrition ex-
ceptnitrogen.. One hundred pounds
of wood ashes contain sixteen pound
of potash, worth eighty cents; three
and one.half pounds soda, worth
two cents; sixtyseven pounds of
lime and magnesia, worth eight
cents, and five and one-half pounds
of phosphoric acid, worth twenty
six cents. If we had to buy in
market in the cheapest form the
manurial elements contained in one
hundred pounds Of ashes, the cost
would be $1.16. Can you afford to
throw away such valuable materials,
or sell them for sixpence a bushel to
the soap boileri No argument is
needed; here is the value and there
the selling price. Draw your own
conclusions. Even where ashes
have been leached to the last degree,
till every soluble thing has been
washed away, they still have value,
for the phosphate and carbonate Of
lime and magnesia remain, and they
are worth thirty-four cents for one
hundred pounds, or $3.50 a ton.
The market gardeners of Long Is
lund know their value and send
ships one thousand miles to bring
the ash heaps ofMaine, even when
they had to draw the ashes five miles
before reaching the ship. But l will
not consume your time to tell you
how they do things down east, but
will give you my experience with
leachedashes inEaton county. More
than thirty years ago l settled in
Vermontville, and bought lot for
my home, or as expressed it to my
wife, ~ fenced in two and one-half
acres of paradise" The soil was
stiff boulder clay, and had been ex-
hausted by a rotation, consisting of
wheat stubble and wheat. Here l
planted every bearing tree and
shrub of superior value, and in the
selection of fruits 81 withheld not
my heart from any joy" l kept
COW and three horses, for in the thin
ly settled country horseflesh had to
bear the brunt of hard work. had
plenty of stable manure and used it
freely. But l soon found that the
excess of stable manure gave my
pear trees the fire blight, made my
apples run to water sprouts and
my grapes ran wildwood.
l then turned my attentiOnto heap
of leached ashes near by, and had
seventy-five to eighty tons of these
ashes scattered over my field. No
more fire blight or water sprouts,
but golden fruit in bountiful sup
ply. Like my ever-so- great grand
father Adam, l left my paradise,
which passed through several hands,
and at last came into the possession
Of Mrs. B., in exchange for ono
hundred and sixty-acre farm. Her
son told me she received more mon
ey from the sale of fruit from that
two and One-half acre lot than she
received from the one hundred and
sixty acre farm. The soil has not
forgotten that liberal dressing of
leached ashes, applied more than
twenty five years ago. Apply ashes
literally, especially if your soil is o
pen and porous.
He also says "that all leached
ashes can lose is little of their pot
ash, and all tho other materils can
not be washed out by water" He
says in regard to strawberry beds:
''If the ground is in good condition,
l should use little else than leached
ashes" Again, in reference to ger
man potash salts which are used on
Jersey sands, "better pay a dollar a
bushel for good wood ashes"