Report of the Agriculture of Massachusetts Volume 1-3 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1838 Excerpt: ... they have no tendency to act on each other. We can only excite (his action by introducing new elements, salts, which in this sense only, can be said to be excitants or stimulants. The silicates are the flour, the salts the yeast. The galvanic agency is excited by the salts, but above all, over all, and controlling all, this action of soils is the living plant. The influence of the last unfolds the mystery of the often repeated experiment of growing plants in pure water. Granting the water to have been chemically pure, the galvanic agency of the vegetable would decompose the containing vessel. The most barren sand would be made fertile by living plants. Sand containing no appreciable quantity of geine, may yet from its origin from sedimentary rocks contain carbon. Water it, and grow in it plants. Let these perish. They return to the sand, not only organic matter, the source of geine for a new crop, but various salts, of whose previous existence in the same it required the most delicate chemistry to detect traces. The living plant is a consummate analyst. This is the process nature employs. Mr. Keely, acting on this principle, and following out and assisting the natural mode, has opened the whole soul of raising crops. The memorable experiment of the Haverhill rye-field, ought to be engraved on the thresholds and lintels of every farm-house in the country. It teaches us that salts, so important in agriculture, are within the reach of every farmer. Every farmer has a lime-quarry on his own land. He ought also to have constantly burning a lime-kiln. The farmer has on his own grounds, lime sufficient for all wants. Let all brushwood, unfit for the kitchen, be burned for the ashes. But let the soot too be saved. It is too valuable to be lost in air. Look at its ...