Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1886-08-13
Agricultural,



A late bulletin by Prof. r. @. Kedzie,
chemist Of the Michigan agricultural college,
treats OF the manureal value Of wood ashes.
lie has been largely quoted by the agricultu-
raj papers, and so far as we have seen, with
out comment on the rather surprising result
of his analyses He makes hard wood ashes,
made in a kitchen stove from a mixture OF
beech and maple, contain twelve and one
fourth per cent Of potash and six per cent OF
phosphoric acid. cord OF hard wood, he
says, makes but ten pounds Of ashes and
cord Of soft wood but five pounds.
Soft wood ashes, from the planings of
hemlock, fir and Eastwood, with small
quantity of soft coal burned with them, he
found to contain twelve per cent Of potash
and four per cent of phosphoric acid. The
weight Of the ash from a cord of wood as de-
termined by Prof. Kedzie, is much less than
others have found, and the proportions of
potash and phosphoric acid is much more.
Thirteen analyses of wood ashes from house.
hold fires, made by Dr. +. H. Storer, gave an
average of eight and one-half per cent of
potash and small fraction over two per
cent of phosphorio acid Several analyses of
the ashes Of different kinds of hard wood at
the Connecticut agricultural experiment sta
ton gave from 3.O7 to 1926 per cent of pot
ash and from l. G3 to POI of phosphoric acid.
Only about one-third as much phosphoric
ncid and about two.thirds as much potash
as Prof Kedzie finds were found by these
analyses.
Mr.. S. P. Sharples, special agent in charge
of the examination of the wood of the native
trees of North America for the census report
on forestry, gives exhaustive statistics of the
specific gravity and the weight per cubic foot
of the dry wood of all the trees of the United
States. Small blocks of each kind of wood
of uniform size we're kiln dried until they
ceased to lose weight. The specific gravity and
weight per cubic foot were then determined,
and at least two tests were made for each
kind of wood examined. Specimens of each
we're also carefully weighed, burned, and the
per cent. of ash determined. A large num-
Der of specimens of all the more important
wood and timber trees we're examined. The
average weight of eight specimens of beech
wood, dried as before stated was 43 lbs. per
cubic foot, within a small fraction. Allowing
IOr ln6 lnlerBLlCeb III COEu WOOu hb ubuhlly
piled for measurement and reckoning 40 lbs
per cubic foot, cord of dry beech would
weigh about $500 pounds. The ash from
these specimens was found to average G. 81
per cent. cord of beech weighing 450C
pounds would therefore make nearly 2;
pounds of ashes.
Specimens of hard maple from seven states
including Vermont, wers examined. Tit
maple was found to average slightly heavie
than the beech. Nine specimens tested av
eraged a fraction more than 43 pounds pc
cubic foot, and the proportion of ash to th,
whole weight was 0. "a per cent This make
about "a pounds of ashes from a cord of hart
maple, and 234 pounds from cord compose
of equal parts of beech and maple instead o
ten pounds as found by Prof. Kedzie.
The wide difference appearing in the re
suits of these tests and analyses shows HOY
unsafe it is to depend absolutely upon a sin
gle authority even in matters that it wou
seem might be determined with considerable
eXactness,