Rensselaer Union, Volume 10, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 March 1878 — Coal Ashes for Wheat Lands. [ARTICLE]

Coal Ashes for Wheat Lands.

It would not be correct, perhaps, to say that coal ashes, plowed in and under, and stable or barn yard manure spread on the surface of wheat fields, would not act beneficially upon all or nearly all soils, whether they were rich in nitrogen and vegetable matter or not: still it is not the writer’s purpose in this article to go over the whole ground, but rather to confine himself to light-colored clay and magnesia soils, such as characterize a considerable part of the prairie and timbered wheat soils and lands of no small portion of the States of Missouri, Arkansas, Indiana and Illinois. Whilst the black prairie soils, the corn soils, par excellence, whether they lie in Texas or father north or east, have too much nitrogen and humus in their composition to produce good crops of wheat after the third or fourth one has been taken oft', unless they are subjected and submitted to a special course of preliminary treatment, which reduces the amounts both of humus and nitrogen, the white and yellow clays, after bearing two or three similar crops, require an addition of these substances, in the form of some amendment or fertilizer, which has a tendency to improve the mechanical texture of the soil, by rendering it less compact and indurated, and the surface addition of manure of some kind to supply the needed quantity of nitrogen. Thus, in Southern Illinois, and especially on the post-oak flats and yellow and white clay soils, and magnesia lands, a light coating of manure spread on wheat-fields any time after seeding, or in the winter season, increases the growth of straw and yield of grain out of all proportion to what might be logically inferred from the quantity .applied. And where barn of stable manure is not to be had. or where it is tough and used by the ti*uck-,patch men, who.find a market for these vegetables among the workmen gathered in the mining towns within the coal districts, it has been ascertained that the ashes of coal-slack spread liberally on the surface previous to the preliminary plowing for the wheat-crop produces results nearly equally surprising. Not only do these coal ashes improve the texture and mechanical condition of the soil, but they evidently contribute some important element of plantfood, or perhaps some of their constituent elements act as a solvent to substances already in the spil, and in that way benefit the wheat-plant; for it has already been established by repeated experiments that a three-inch coating of coal ashes spread on the surface before’plowing actaaiLSUcecssfully and surely as stable manure spread after sowing, or' during the winter months. All through the coal mining districts and counties of the States named above there have accumulated/' vast piles of these wastes of the coal mines, and the problem has been how to get rid of them with the least possible expense to the operators of the mines, and the ascertainment of the fact that they have considerable value as an amendment and fertilizer to the soils lying about, and that they will be, sooner or later, so used and Consumed, may be regarded in the light of a great public benefit. So also in the heavily-timbered portions of the States named, where sawmills have been established for a longer or shorter terra, employed in working up the timlwr iu shape to go upon the market of the country, there are to ' be seen great piles of Wood ashes, which have heretofore l»een considered of so I little value that they have been allowed

to accumulate, till, like coal-elaok, they actually cumber the ground. But it is beginning to be undeiatood that the failure of vineyard# and orchards to produce fruit, after two or three successful crops, is due probably to the exhaustion in the soil of potash therein contained, so that already the more inquiring and enlightened fruitgrowers are gathering up all the wood ashes within their reach and applying them to their potash-exhausted orchards and vineyards. But few only of these gentlemen have learned that potash, placed oh the surface, whether in the form of ashes or otherwise, remains there, and that to get the full benefit of such application within a limited time it is necessary to bare the feeding-roots at their extremities, and apply the plant-food at these points. In view of these facts we are led to the following, among other important conclusions: That for light-colored, compact clays and magnesia lands, post-oak flats, and dead, level prairie wheatsoils, when sown to wheat, therj is no way in which manure from the barn or stable can be used to so much advantage as to spread a light coat of it over wheat Helus; the sooner after seeding the better; but better any time previous to the first of March than not at all; that in the vicinity of coal mines, where coal ashes are to be had, it will pay the farmer, whether he proposes to grow wheat, or grass, or corn, or vegetables, to coat his fields over with at least three inches of coal-ashes previous to plowing, with the certainty that, while the benefits of the work will show at once, they will continue to show in the same way much longer than stable manure, and for the reason that the manure is largely made up of vegetable matter, which sooner decays ana disappears, while the ashes are composed of minerals like the substance of the hills, and have a life everlasting like them; and finally, that the ashes now wasting in the neighborhood of saw-mills should be gathered up and used to the last bushel in the orchards and vineyards of the country around them; and for the reason not only that these ashes, whether new or old, leached or unleached, are but a part of the substances of a gigantic old vegetation reduced to its lowest terms, that they are the main matters out of which the forms of the new vegetation are to be created and sustained; and, finally, they contain the material to furnish those potash and other alkaline bases, without a liberal supply of which in the soil there can be no healthy and permanent fruitfulness in vineyards and orchards, no matter how favorably situated, planted and kept.- -Home and Farm. —— —Seth Green got his first start in life from a citizen of Michigan, who taught ’him fish culture and lent him money to begin business. A thkze-fOot rule—Sleek up your yard as spring approaches.— Boston Globe. e —. ■ The “Povlthy Wwu.D,” Hartford, Conn., is the leading magazine of its class, $1.25 a year; 12 superb Chkomos mailed for only 75c. additional. All fowl-breeders should have it. Subscribe now for 1878. It is best and cheapest. 10c. sample No.