Familiar Letters on Chemistry Part 7

Wheat, clover, turnips, for example, each require certain elements from the soil; they will not flourish where the appropriate elements are absent. Science teaches us what elements are essential to every species of plants by an a.n.a.lysis of their ashes. If therefore a soil is found wanting in any of those elements, we discover at once the cause of its barrenness, and its removal may now be readily accomplished.

The empiric attributes all his success to the mechanical operations of agriculture; he experiences and recognises their value, without inquiring what are the causes of their utility, their mode of action: and yet this scientific knowledge is of the highest importance for regulating the application of power and the expenditure of capital,--for insuring its economical expenditure and the prevention of waste. Can it be imagined that the mere pa.s.sing of the ploughshare or the harrow through the soil--the mere contact of the iron--can impart fertility miraculously? n.o.body, perhaps, seriously entertains such an opinion. Nevertheless, the modus operandi of these mechanical operations is by no means generally understood. The fact is quite certain, that careful ploughing exerts the most favourable influence: the surface is thus mechanically divided, changed, increased, and renovated; but the ploughing is only auxiliary to the end sought.

In the effects of time, in what in Agriculture are technically called fallows--the repose of the fields--we recognise by science certain chemical actions, which are continually exercised by the elements of the atmosphere upon the whole surface of our globe. By the action of its oxygen and its carbonic acid, aided by water, rain, changes of temperature, &c., certain elementary const.i.tuents of rocks, or of their ruins, which form the soil capable of cultivation, are rendered soluble in water, and consequently become separable from all their insoluble parts.

These chemical actions, poetically denominates the "tooth of time,"

destroy all the works of man, and gradually reduce the hardest rocks to the condition of dust. By their influence the necessary elements of the soil become fitted for a.s.similation by plants; and it is precisely the end which is obtained by the mechanical operations of farming. They accelerate the decomposition of the soil, in order to provide a new generation of plants with the necessary elements in a condition favourable to their a.s.similation. It is obvious that the rapidity of the decomposition of a solid body must increase with the extension of its surface; the more points of contact we offer in a given time to the external chemical agent, the more rapid will be its action.

The chemist, in order to prepare a mineral for a.n.a.lysis, to decompose it, or to increase the solubility of its elements, proceeds in the same way as the farmer deals with his fields--he spares no labour in order to reduce it to the finest powder; he separates the impalpable from the coa.r.s.er parts by washing, and repeats his mechanical bruising and trituration, being a.s.sured his whole process will fail if he is inattentive to this essential and preliminary part of it.

The influence which the increase of surface exercises upon the disintegration of rocks, and upon the chemical action of air and moisture, is strikingly ill.u.s.trated upon a large scale in the operations pursued in the gold-mines of Yaquil, in Chili. These are described in a very interesting manner by Darwin. The rock containing the gold ore is pounded by mills into the finest powder; this is subjected to washing, which separates the lighter particles from the metallic; the gold sinks to the bottom, while a stream of water carries away the lighter earthy parts into ponds, where it subsides to the bottom as mud. When this deposit has gradually filled up the pond, this mud is taken out and piled in heaps, and left exposed to the action of the atmosphere and moisture. The washing completely removes all the soluble part of the disintegrated rock; the insoluble part, moreover, cannot undergo any further change while it is covered with water, and so excluded from the influence of the atmosphere at the bottom of the pond. But being exposed at once to the air and moisture, a powerful chemical action takes place in the whole ma.s.s, which becomes indicated by an efflorescence of salts covering the whole surface of the heaps in considerable quant.i.ty. After being exposed for two or three years, the mud is again subjected to the same process of washing, and a considerable quant.i.ty of gold is obtained, this having been separated by the chemical process of decomposition in the ma.s.s. The exposure and washing of the same mud is repeated six or seven times, and at every washing it furnishes a new quant.i.ty of gold, although its amount diminishes every time.

Precisely similar is the chemical action which takes place in the soil of our fields; and we accelerate and increase it by the mechanical operations of our agriculture. By these we sever and extend the surface, and endeavour to make every atom of the soil accessible to the action of the carbonic acid and oxygen of the atmosphere. We thus produce a stock of soluble mineral substances, which serves as nourishment to a new generation of plants, materials which are indispensable to their growth and prosperity.

LETTER XIII

My dear Sir,

Having in my last letter spoken of the general principles upon which the science and art of agriculture must be based, let me now direct your attention to some of those particulars between chemistry and agriculture, and demonstrate the impossibility of perfecting the important art of rearing food for man and animals, without a profound knowledge of our science.

All plants cultivated as food require for their healthy sustenance the alkalies and alkaline earths, each in a certain proportion; and in addition to these, the cerealia do not succeed in a soil dest.i.tute of silica in a soluble condition. The combinations of this substance found as natural productions, namely, the silicates, differ greatly in the degree of facility with which they undergo decomposition, in consequence of the unequal resistance opposed by their integral parts to the dissolving power of the atmospheric agencies. Thus the granite of Corsica degenerates into a powder in a time which scarcely suffices to deprive the polished granite of Heidelberg of its l.u.s.tre.

Some soils abound in silicates so readily decomposable, that in every one or two years, as much silicate of potash becomes soluble and fitted for a.s.similation as is required by the leaves and straw of a crop of wheat. In Hungary, extensive districts are not uncommon where wheat and tobacco have been grown alternately upon the same soil for centuries, the land never receiving back any of those mineral elements which were withdrawn in the grain and straw. On the other hand, there are fields in which the necessary amount of soluble silicate of potash for a single crop of wheat is not separated from the insoluble ma.s.ses in the soil in less than two, three, or even more years.

The term fallow, in Agriculture, designates that period in which the soil, left to the influence of the atmosphere, becomes enriched with those soluble mineral const.i.tuents. Fallow, however, does not generally imply an entire cessation of cultivation, but only an interval in the growth of the cerealia. That store of silicates and alkalies which is the princ.i.p.al condition of their success is obtained, if potatoes or turnips are grown upon the same fields in the intermediate periods, since these crops do not abstract a particle of silica, and therefore leave the field equally fertile for the following crop of wheat.

The preceding remarks will render it obvious to you, that the mechanical working of the soil is the simplest and cheapest method of rendering the elements of nutrition contained in it accessible to plants.

But it may be asked, Are there not other means of decomposing the soil besides its mechanical subdivision?--are there not substances, which by their chemical operation will equally well or better render its const.i.tuents suitable for entering into vegetable organisms?

Yes: we certainly possess such substances, and one of them, namely, quick-lime, has been employed for the last century past in England for this purpose; and it would be difficult to find a substance better adapted to this service, as it is simple, and in almost all localities cheap and easily accessible.

In order to obtain correct views respecting the effect of quick-lime upon the soil, let me remind you of the first process employed by the chemist when he is desirous of a.n.a.lysing a mineral, and for this purpose wishes to bring its elements into a soluble state. Let the mineral to be examined be, for instance, feldspar; this substance, taken alone, even when reduced to the finest powder, requires for its solution to be treated with an acid for weeks or months; but if we first mix it with quick-lime, and expose the mixture to a moderately strong heat, the lime enters into chemical combination with certain elements of the feldspar, and its alkali (pota.s.s) is set free. And now the acid, even without heat, dissolves not only the lime, but also so much of the silica of the feldspar as to form a transparent jelly. The same effect which the lime in this process, with the aid of heat, exerts upon the feldspar, it produces when it is mixed with the alkaline argillaceous silicates, and they are for a long time kept together in a moist state.

Common potters' clay, or pipe-clay, diffused through water, and added to milk of lime, thickens immediately upon mixing; and if the mixture is kept for some months, and then treated with acid, the clay becomes gelatinous, which would not occur without the admixture with the lime. The lime, in combining with the elements of the clay, liquifies it; and, what is more remarkable, liberates the greater part of its alkalies. These interesting facts were first observed by Fuchs, at Munich: they have not only led to a more intimate knowledge of the nature and properties of the hydraulic cements, but, what is far more important, they explain the effects of caustic lime upon the soil, and guide the agriculturist in the application of an invaluable means of opening it, and setting free its alkalies--substances so important, nay, so indispensable to his crops.

In the month of October the fields of Yorkshire and Oxfordshire look as it they were covered with snow. Whole square miles are seen whitened over with quicklime, which during the moist winter months, exercises its beneficial influence upon the stiff, clayey soil, of those counties.

According to the humus theory, quick-lime ought to exert the most noxious influence upon the soil, because all organic matters contained in it are destroyed by it, and rendered incapable of yielding their humus to a new vegetation. The facts are indeed directly contrary to this now abandoned theory: the fertility of the soil is increased by the lime. The cerealia require the alkalies and alkaline silicates, which the action of the lime renders fit for a.s.similation by the plants. If, in addition to these, there is any decaying organic matter present in the soil supplying carbonic acid, it may facilitate their development; but it is not essential to their growth. If we furnish the soil with ammonia, and the phosphates, which are indispensable to the cerealia, with the alkaline silicates, we have all the conditions necessary to ensure an abundant harvest. The atmosphere is an inexhaustible store of carbonic acid.

A no less favourable influence than that of lime is exercised upon the soil of peaty land by the mere act of burning it: this greatly enhances its fertility. We have not long been acquainted with the remarkable change which the properties of clay undergo by burning.

The observation was first made in the process of a.n.a.lysing the clay silicates. Many of these, in their natural state, are not acted on by acids, but they become perfectly soluble if heated to redness before the application of the acid. This property belongs to potters' clay, pipe-clay, loam, and many different modifications of clay in soils. In their natural state they may be boiled in concentrated sulphuric acid, without sensible change; but if feebly burned, as is done with the pipe-clay in many alum manufactories, they dissolve in the acid with the greatest facility, the contained silica being separated like jelly in a soluble state. Potters' clay belongs to the most sterile kinds of soil, and yet it contains within itself all the const.i.tuent elements essential to a most luxurious growth of plants; but their mere presence is insufficient to secure this end. The soil must be accessible to the atmosphere, to its oxygen, to its carbonic acid; these must penetrate it, in order to secure the conditions necessary to a happy and vigorous development of the roots. The elements present must be brought into that peculiar state of combination which will enable them to enter into plants. Plastic clay is wanting in these properties; but they are imparted to it by a feeble calcination.

At Hardwicke Court, near Gloucester, I have seen a garden (Mr.

Baker's) consisting of a stiff clay, which was perfectly sterile, become by mere burning extremely fertile. The operation was extended to a depth of three feet. This was an expensive process, certainly; but it was effectual.

The great difference in the properties of burnt and unburnt clay is ill.u.s.trated by what is seen in brick houses, built in moist situations. In the town of Flanders, for instance, where most buildings are of brick, effloresences of salts cover the surfaces of the walls, like a white nap, within a few days after they are erected. If this saline incrustation is washed away by the rain, it soon re-appears; and this is even observed on walls which, like the gateway of Lisle, have been erected for centuries. These saline incrustations consist of carbonates and sulphates, with alkaline bases; and it is well known these act an important part in vegetation. The influence of lime in their production is manifested by their appearing first at the place where the mortar and brick come into contact.

It will now be obvious to you, that in a mixture of clay with lime, all the conditions exist for the solution of the silicated clay, and the solubility of the alkaline silicates. The lime gradually dissolving in water charged with carbonic acid, acts like milk of lime upon the clay. This explains also the favourable influence which marl (by which term all those varieties of clay rich in chalk are designated) exerts upon most kinds of soil. There are marly soils which surpa.s.s all others in fertility for all kinds of plants; but I believe marl in a burnt state must be far more effective, as well as other materials possessing a similar composition; as, for instance, those species of limestone which are adapted to the preparation of hydraulic cements,--for these carry to the soil not only the alkaline bases useful to plants, but also silica in a state capable of a.s.similation.

The ashes of coals and lignite are also excellent means of ameliorating the soil, and they are used in many places for this purpose. The most suitable may be readily known by their property of forming a gelatinous ma.s.s when treated with acids, or by becoming, when mixed with cream of lime, like hydraulic cement,--solid and hard as stone.

I have now, I trust, explained to your satisfaction, that the mechanical operations of agriculture--the application of lime and chalk to lands, and the burning of clay--depend upon one and the same scientific principle: they are means of accelerating the decomposition of the alkaline clay silicates, in order to provide plants, at the beginning of a new vegetation, with certain inorganic matters indispensable for their nutrition.

LETTER XIV

My dear Sir,

I treated, in my last letter, of the means of improving the condition of the soil for agricultural purposes by mechanical operations and mineral agents. I have now to speak of the uses and effects of animal exuviae, and vegetable matters or manures--properly so called.

In order to understand the nature of these, and the peculiarity of their influence upon our fields, it is highly important to keep in mind the source whence they are derived.

It is generally known, that if we deprive an animal of food, the weight of its body diminishes during every moment of its existence.

If this abstinence is continued for some time, the diminution becomes apparent to the eye; all the fat of the body disappears, the muscles decrease in firmness and bulk, and, if the animal is allowed to die starved, scarcely anything but skin, tendon, and bones, remain. This emaciation which occurs in a body otherwise healthy, demonstrates to us, that during the life of an animal every part of its living substance is undergoing a perpetual change; all its component parts, a.s.suming the form of lifeless compounds, are thrown off by the skin, lungs, and urinary system, altered more or less by the secretory organs. This change in the living body is intimately connected with the process of respiration; it is, in truth, occasioned by the oxygen of the atmosphere in breathing, which combines with all the various matters within the body. At every inspiration a quant.i.ty of oxygen pa.s.ses into the blood in the lungs, and unites with its elements; but although the weight of the oxygen thus daily entering into the body amounts to 32 or more ounces, yet the weight of the body is not thereby increased. Exactly as much oxygen as is imbibed in inspiration pa.s.ses off in expiration, in the form of carbonic acid and water; so that with every breath the amount of carbon and hydrogen in the body is diminished. But the emaciation--the loss of weight by starvation--does not simply depend upon the separation of the carbon and hydrogen; but all the other substances which are in combination with these elements in the living tissues pa.s.s off in the secretions. The nitrogen undergoes a change, and is thrown out of the system by the kidneys. Their secretion, the urine, contains not only a compound rich in nitrogen, namely urea, but the sulphur of the tissues in the form of a sulphate, all the soluble salts of the blood and animal fluids, common salt, the phosphates, soda and potash. The carbon and hydrogen of the blood, of the muscular fibre, and of all the animal tissues which can undergo change, return into the atmosphere. The nitrogen, and all the soluble inorganic elements are carried to the earth in the urine.

These changes take place in the healthy animal body during every moment of life; a waste and loss of substance proceeds continually; and if this loss is to be restored, and the original weight and substance repaired, an adequate supply of materials must be furnished, from whence the blood and wasted tissues may be regenerated. This supply is obtained from the food.

In an adult person in a normal or healthy condition, no sensible increase or decrease of weight occurs from day to day. In youth the weight of the body increases, whilst in old age it decreases. There can be no doubt that in the adult, the food has exactly replaced the loss of substance: it has supplied just so much carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and other elements, as have pa.s.sed through the skin, lungs, and urinary organs. In youth the supply is greater than the waste. Part of the elements of the food remain to augment the bulk of the body. In old age the waste is greater than the supply, and the body diminishes. It is unquestionable, that, with the exception of a certain quant.i.ty of carbon and hydrogen, which are secreted through the skin and lungs, we obtain, in the solid and fluid excrements of man and animals, all the elements of their food.

We obtain daily, in the form of urea, all the nitrogen taken in the food both of the young and the adult; and further, in the urine, the whole amount of the alkalies, soluble phosphates and sulphates, contained in all the various aliments. In the solid excrements are found all those substances taken in the food which have undergone no alteration in the digestive organs, all indigestible matters, such as woody fibre, the green colouring matter of leaves ( chlorophyle), wax, &c.

Physiology teaches us, that the process of nutrition in animals, that is, their increase of bulk, or the restoration of wasted parts, proceeds from the blood. The purpose of digestion and a.s.similation is to convert the food into blood. In the stomach and intestines, therefore, all those substances in the food capable of conversion into blood are separated from its other const.i.tuents; in other words, during the pa.s.sage of the food through the intestinal ca.n.a.l there is a constant absorption of its nitrogen, since only azotised substances are capable of conversion into blood; and therefore the solid excrements are dest.i.tute of that element, except only a small portion, in the const.i.tution of that secretion which is formed to facilitate their pa.s.sage. With the solid excrements, the phosphates of lime and magnesia, which were contained in the food and not a.s.similated, are carried off, these salts being insoluble in water, and therefore not entering the urine.

We may obtain a clear insight into the chemical const.i.tution of the solid excrements without further investigation, by comparing the faeces of a dog with his food. We give that animal flesh and bones--substances rich in azotised matter--and we obtain, as the last product of its digestion, a perfectly white excrement, solid while moist, but becoming in dry air a powder. This is the phosphate of lime of the bones, with scarcely one per cent. of foreign organic matter.

Thus we see that in the solid and fluid excrements of man and animals, all the nitrogen--in short, all the const.i.tuent ingredients of the consumed food, soluble and insoluble, are returned; and as food is primarily derived from the fields, we possess in those excrements all the ingredients which we have taken from it in the form of seeds, roots, or herbs.

One part of the crops employed for fattening sheep and cattle is consumed by man as animal food; another part is taken directly--as flour, potatoes, green vegetables, &c.; a third portion consists of vegetable refuse, and straw employed as litter. None of the materials of the soil need be lost. We can, it is obvious, get back all its const.i.tuent parts which have been withdrawn therefrom, as fruits, grain and animals, in the fluid and solid excrements of man, and the bones, blood and skins of the slaughtered animals. It depends upon ourselves to collect carefully all these scattered elements, and to restore the disturbed equilibrium of composition in the soil. We can calculate exactly how much and which of the component parts of the soil we export in a sheep or an ox, in a quarter of barley, wheat or potatoes, and we can discover, from the known composition of the excrements of man and animals, how much we have to supply to restore what is lost to our fields.

If, however, we could procure from other sources the substances which give to the exuviae of man and animals their value in agriculture, we should not need the latter. It is quite indifferent for our purpose whether we supply the ammonia (the source of nitrogen) in the form of urine, or in that of a salt derived from coal-tar; whether we derive the phosphate of lime from bones, apat.i.te, or fossil excrements (the coprolithes).

The princ.i.p.al problem for agriculture is, how to replace those substances which have been taken from the soil, and which cannot be furnished by the atmosphere. If the manure supplies an imperfect compensation for this loss, the fertility of a field or of a country decreases; if, on the contrary, more are given to the fields, their fertility increases.

An importation of urine, or of solid excrements, from a foreign country, is equivalent to an importation of grain and cattle. In a certain time, the elements of those substances a.s.sume the form of grain, or of fodder, then become flesh and bones, enter into the human body, and return again day by day to the form they originally possessed.

The only real loss of elements we are unable to prevent is of the phosphates, and these, in accordance with the customs of all modern nations, are deposited in the grave. For the rest, every part of that enormous quant.i.ty of food which a man consumes during his lifetime ( say in sixty or seventy years), which was derived from the fields, can be obtained and returned to them. We know with absolute certainty, that in the blood of a young or growing animal there remains a certain quant.i.ty of phosphate of lime and of the alkaline phosphates, to be stored up and to minister to the growth of the bones and general bulk of the body, and that, with the exception of this very small quant.i.ty, we receive back, in the solid and fluid excrements, all the salts and alkaline bases, all the phosphate of lime and magnesia, and consequently all the inorganic elements which the animal consumes in its food.

We can thus ascertain precisely the quant.i.ty, quality, and composition of animal excrements, without the trouble of a.n.a.lysing them. If we give a horse daily 4 1/2 pounds' weight of oats, and 15 pounds of hay, and knowing that oats give 4 per cent. and hay 9 per cent. of ashes, we can calculate that the daily excrements of the horse will contain 21 ounces of inorganic matter which was drawn from the fields. By a.n.a.lysis we can determine the exact relative amount of silica, of phosphates, and of alkalies, contained in the ashes of the oats and of the hay.

You will now understand that the const.i.tuents of the solid parts of animal excrements, and therefore their qualities as manure, must vary with the nature of the creature's food. If we feed a cow upon beetroot, or potatoes, without hay, straw or grain, there will be no silica in her solid excrements, but there will be phosphate of lime and magnesia. Her fluid excrements will contain carbonate of potash and soda, together with compounds of the same bases with inorganic acids. In one word, we have, in the fluid excrements, all the soluble parts of the ashes of the consumed food; and in the solid excrements, all those parts of the ashes which are insoluble in water.

If the food, after burning, leaves behind ashes containing soluble alkaline phosphates, as is the case with bread, seeds of all kinds, and flesh, we obtain from the animal by which they are consumed a urine holding in solution these phosphates. If, however, the ashes of food contain no alkaline phosphates, but abound in insoluble earthy phosphates, as hay, carrots, and potatoes, the urine will be free from alkaline phosphates, but the earthy phosphates will be found in the faeces. The urine of man, of carnivorous and graminivorous animals, contains alkaline phosphates; that of herbivorous animals is free from these salts.