FARMING AND CHEMISTRY

Waikato Times, Volume I, Issue 37, 25 July 1872, Page 2

FARMING AND CHEMISTRY

Thr value of chemical knowledge in deter, mining what are and what are not good fertilising materials might b& shown by many examples. An American former .gives one which is not a little amusing. Ho passed a farm one day on which he saw Hhs teams busily at work carting peat (or what w#nt by the name of peat) as manure to the fields. Peat, he very truly observes, differ# very much from certain heavy deposits from ponds left dry from the absence of rains. The former in some cases, may be advantageous, the latter scarcely ever. "An examination," says he, "of one of these deposits in process of removal showed that sand and clay formed nearly fifty per cent of the bulk, of, the material; water and a small amount of decomposed leavesand rushes made up the remainder.. The black fragments of vegetable material gave the mass a dark appearance, and bence it was supposed to have a manurial value." Rule of thumb, judging from its rich appearance, regarded the deposit as a treasure ; the instructed observer regarded it as worthless, and the whole operation consequently as worse than unremuuer.it ive. n© considered that most fields would be positively injured by applying to them this heavy silt or mud ; and to'afford some shadow of a proof to the master of the farm he put a handful of the mixture into a little clear water, and when it had stood some hours, pointed out the great stratum of sand and clay at the bottom, and the exceedingly slight film of vegetable matter on the top. Th« plant food in the material was as nothing. Whether the carting was knocked off in consequence of tin's rough-and-ready demonstration we are not told, but possibly not. The «xptriment to a thick skull might be wanting in conclusiveness. The observer in this case adds "We are certain that the value of peat ; as a source of plant food has been greatly exaggerated. From a considerable number of analyses of peat (this, please remark, is true peat) taken from various localities this winter, we select two. as representing both extremes, one a very good, the other a very poor article. The first and best gave-— Water . ... 84.95 Ash 4.83 Organic matter ... 10.22 100.00 The second gave of Water ... ... 63.73 .. 28.06 Organs matter ... ... ... 7.71 100.00

A ton of the first specimen htAJ l7oolbs of water, the second lQOOlbs. The best etrwhained 2001 ba of vegetable matter, the worst JLUUIbs. What fertilising- value the specimen contained is to be found in the ash and- organic matter. The ash of the first was composed of sand sulphate and carbonate of lime, oxide of iron, with traces of magnesia and soda ; the second was made up largely of day and sand with small quantities of lime. These mineral constituents are insignificant in value., although in one of the specimens large in amount. It may be said that the ash constituents of the best specimen are practically of little account, and the first holds but traces; of the costly materials of plant food."

In this case it is pretty clear that the farmer might have gone a cheaper way to work had he expended money in the purchase of manure, valued according to the plant-food contained in it; for every one of the manorial constituents of a fertiliser has its price per pound or per ton in the market. A multitude of experiments has now enabled the farmer to oalculate upon such and such a,gain from the application of such and such a maanre under defined conditions. Such facts have been placed before our readers again and again.

I A London paper says: —" The sale of the well-known (jrillott collection of pictures at Christie, Manson, and Wood's on Friday and Saturday, excited even greater interest than in the previous week, arid no wonder when the character and importance of the bidding* are considered. Nine pictures by Turner, brought an aggregate of 14,200 guineas. The American Government made some acquisitions, bat the distinguished collectors the Messrs. Agnew, of Pall-mall and Manchester, would appear to have held theb position against all comers in the desperate competition. Thus, when Collins'a picture of " The Cromer Sands " was pat up, the first bidding of 2000 guineas was followed by one of 3000 guineas, which sum was increased by a bidding of. 500 guineas, when the Messrs Agnew added another 100, and thus obtained u Cromer Sands " for 3,600 guineas. This little transaction was, however, soon eclipsed when the famous picture, by Turner, of " Walton Bridges, with boats and figures, and j cows and horses watering," was put up. j Again the first bidding of 2000 guineas was followed by one of 3000 guineas, when the j competitor became restless and agitated, and * the sum rose rapidly to 4000 guineas and 1 some Odd hundreds, when the Messrs. Agnew ; again kindly settled the dispute by an advance I which brought the total to 5000 guineas, and j became, the owners of " Walton Bridges," f painted by Turner. The total amount red- ] ised by the four days' sale may be fixed at! 135,000 guineas. >

FACTS FOR FARMERS. An intelligent American farmer gives tha following account of a plan ha adopted for pounding up bones, "lie >ays: —" I made me a mortar of two-inch, plank, pinning the four sides together- and. shrinking on a stout iron hoop on the ontaide,; after the manner, of Just- ■ ting tires on cart-wheels. Tho bottom (grooved in a few inches above the lower end of the mortar)- is made of iron, six inches wide and about ten long, accompanied with a -piece of the plank of the same dimensions, and lx>th perforated with small holes. For a pestle I mkfc a sledge or stone-hammer, using it in an upright position, and pounding with the front part of it. New boues pound rather tough, but it is much better than patting them on a stone, and making the pieces fly to the four winds." Would not the stump of a tree or a block of iroiibark or-other hard woody scooped ont like a dish, and a piece of stout iron let into the bottom, answer well for a mortar for bone-breaking ? A good pestle might be made by suspending a heavy bar of iron from the end of-;a stout sapling placed over the mortar diagonally; the spring-*)f the sapling won Id greatly assist the labour of pounding the 1 o ies. Novices in farming and gardening ought not to attempt too much at first. Take cabbages for instance, or potatoes—w» mention these as the most common vegetables;—to properly prepare for, plant, and care lor only an acre of cabbages will require considerable labour and sound practice before the work can be dune cheaply and profitably. The same is true of potatoes. Better and more-profitable to plant one acre the first year, mad fertilize and cultivate in the best manner, than to plant three acres and have the work half attended to. For cabbages,, send, to some responsible seedsman, and get the kind of seed best suited for your purpose; sow this in drills, in the open ground. The plants from the seed sown, will be large enough to set in the open field by the end of five or six weeks. Plough the ground five or six inches deep, and run a, subsoil plough in the bottom of the furrow. 'J'his will lift and loosen without turning. To grow cabbages for profit, thp ground,must be rich, deep and mellow. Cabbages will generally pay well when' there is a market near where they are grown : and they air© capital feed for milch cows.

" Potash for potatoes," says the " Scientific Farmer," meaning by potash wood ashas of course. In a recent address, Dr. Nicols, of *' The Journal of Chemistry," alluded to the " deterioration in the potato crop during- the past twtadcy years,"' and riiade the following explanation regarding the ouusea of this falling off" I have a field of potatoes jjpon my farm which I expect will yield 300 bushers to the acre, which may be regarded as an oldfashioned crop. I know that this crop will remove from the soil in tubers and tops at least 400 pounds of potash. I am also certain it will remove 150 pounds of phosphoric acid Now these amounts are very large, and serve to show that the potato plant is a great consumer of the two substances ' and also, it show* that in order to restore our potatofields to their former productive: condition, we must supply phosphatic compounds and substances holding potash in large quantities. For six or eight generations, our fathers have been exhausting the soil, by removing these agents in their potato and other crops, and we have reached a time when the vegetables are starving in. our fields tor the want of their proper food. Our farmers have found that new land gives the best «rops, and this is due to the fact that such fields afford the most potash. But so long as we crop our pastures so unreasonably, we cannot resort to new land, as land it not new that has had its potash and phosphatic elements removed by grazing animals. Remember that a potato field which gives but 100 bushels to the acre requires at least 160 pounds of potash, but by allowing the tops to decay upon the field, 60 pounds ofthis is restored to the soil again, as that amount is contained in them. A medium crop of potatoes requires twice as much phosphoric acid as a medium crop of wheat, so that in two years, with wheat, the land is deprived of no more of its agent than it loses in one year with potatoes. . .