The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1886-08-20
FROM an address on agricultural chem

FROM an address on agricultural chem
istry by II learned gentleman at farm
ers' institute in western New York we
CLEAN the following important facts: All
living organisms derive their living
wholly and their sustenance chiefly
from the dead. When earth is turned
from great depths below organic remains,
it will support little or no vegetation I'M
Til it has gradually furnished itself with
plant food, The higher forms of plant
life require vegetable food and cannot he
grown on meat diet, exclusively.
PhOsphates and ammonia will sti mulate
plant life to take up the food that is
within its reach. Ground plaster posses
ses vast appetite for ammonia and will
absorb many times its bulk of it and
hold it in reserve for the roots to draw
from at their VIII. CiIaiyual. chalk
spent lime, leached wood ashes and salt
will do the same. Accordingly if any of
these substances could be mingled with
the bedding of stock or mixed with the
straw manure in the heap it would gath
er and hold Il large part of the ammonia
which Is so valuable and which other
wise is SO rapidly expelled. Salt would
be best for this purpose as it forms am
mOnia chloride, II substance that is indie
structible by mere exposure. When
salt is so used it captures the ammonia
in II sealed box to which plant life holds
the KEY. We may deluge and destroy
vegetation with too much ammonia Just
as we may kill cattle with too much salt.
but if plant life can lick it up as it likes,
it will thrive. Hence the great value of
salt, plaster, chalk and spent lime or
leached ashes. But no person should
venture To mix quicklime or fresh wood
ashes in compost or manure heap for
the potash or fresh lime will disspate
the ammonia and send it to the cloHds-
the very thing that we should try and
prevent. Another point is that gluten
and albumen, which form large part
of the nourishing material of grain con-
tain phosphate as an essential element,
hence the necessity of supplying this
substance to the soils they feed upon.
The straw of grain is also enamelled with
slick which stiifcns the straw and ena-
bles it to support the heads. 1t is the
ammonia that dissolyes the slick out of
the sand or soil and prepares it for as
sanitation. If a rich, mucky soil grows
rank straw that will not stand up, is
enriched with manure that is strong i'm
ammonia, or fed with plaster or salt, it
will be greatly benefited in this respect.
The weakness of the straw may be due
to the want of a solvent rather than to
the lack of slick. No plaster or kindred
thing will serve the purpose if the soil is
so poor as to possess little or no ammon-
ia, and no phosphate is of avail if the
field is wanting in organic vegetable re-
mans. We must not rely too much up
on chemical analysis of soils. Not all
the reagents in the universe can detect
some of the highly valuable plant pro-
ducing elements of the soil. We may
SOW plaster upon clover sufficient to
cause it to flourish and no chemist can
discern the smallest particle of plaster
left in the soil. The best analysis is the
history of the land, the general charac-
ter of the soil, the crops raised and the
fertilizers applied.