The Farmers' Instructor: Consisting of Essays, Practical Directions, and Hints for the Management of the Farm and the Garden. Originally Published in the Cultivator; Selected and Revised for the School District Library, Том 1

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Harper & brothers, 1847

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Страница 60 - The power of the soil to absorb water by cohesive attraction, depends in great measure upon the state of division of its parts; the more divided they are the greater is their absorbent power. The different constituent parts of soils likewise appear to act, even by cohesive attraction, with different degrees of .energy. Thus vegetable .substances seem to be more absorbent than animal substances ; animal substances more so than compounds of alumina and silica ; and compounds of alumina and silica more...
Страница 125 - ... quick, vigorous and bulky. Buckwheat is much used for this purpose. When this practice is adopted, the period when the plants may be ploughed down, is when they have come into flower, for then they contain the largest quantity of readily soluble matter, and have least exhausted the nourishing substances of the soil. In order that the growth be turned effectually under, it should be laid prostrate by running the roller over it, in the direction in which the plough is to follow. By the 20th of...
Страница 58 - ... both as affording them nourishment, and enabling them to fix themselves in such a manner as to obey those mechanical laws by which their radicles are kept below the surface, and their leaves exposed to the free atmosphere.
Страница 61 - ... clay, and carbonate of lime, with some animal or vegetable matter ; and which are so loose and light as to be freely permeable to the atmosphere. With respect to this quality, carbonate of lime and animal and vegetable matter are of great use in soils ; they give absorbent power to the soil without giving it likewise tenacity: sand, which also destroys tenacity, on the contrary, gives little absorbent power.
Страница 33 - Peat, it has been said, consists of vegetable matter which has undergone a peculiar change. Under a degree of temperature not sufficiently great to decompose the plants that have sprung up upon the surface, these plants accumulate ; and, aided by a certain degree of humidity, are converted into peat, which is either found in strata upon the surface of plains, or accumulated in great beds on the tops and acclivities of mountains, or in valleys, hollows, and ravines. Successive layers...
Страница 59 - Of these soils the last was by far the most, and the first the least, coherent in texture. In all cases the constituent parts of the soil which give tenacity and coherence are the finely divided matters ; and they possess the power of giving those qualities in the highest degree when they contain much alumina.
Страница 59 - A certain degree of friability or looseness of texture is also required in soils, in order that the operations of culture may be easily conducted; that moisture may have free access to the fibres of the roots, that heat may be readily conveyed to them, and that evaporation may proceed without obstruction.— These are commonly attained by the presence of sand.
Страница 59 - ... with carbonate of lime. Vegetable or animal matters, when finely divided, not only give coherence, but likewise softness and penetrability ; but neither they nor any other part of the soil must be in too great proportion ; and a soil is unproductive if it consist entirely of impalpable matters.
Страница 166 - The manner of planting is ordinarily in hills, from two and a half to six feet apart, according to the variety of corn, the strength of the soil, and the fancy of the cultivator. The usual distance in my neighbourhood is three feet. Some, however, plant in drills of one, two, and three rows, by which a greater crop is unquestionably obtained, though the expense of culture is somewhat increased. " The quantity of seed should be double, and may be quadruple of what is required to stand.
Страница 59 - ... two earths, in suitable proportions, would furnish every thing wanted to form the most perfect soil as to water and the operations of culture. In a soil so compounded, water will be presented to the roots by capillary attraction. It will be suspended in it, in the same manner as it is suspended in a sponge, not in a state of aggregation, hut minute division, so that every part may be said to be moist, but not wet.

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