George E. Waring

What is the object of cultivating the soil?

What is necessary in order to cultivate with economy?

Are plants created from nothing?

The object of cultivating the soil is to raise from it a crop of plants. In order to cultivate with economy, we must raise the largest possible quantity with the least expense, and without permanent injury to the soil.

Before this can be done we must study the character of plants, and learn their exact composition. They are not created by a mysterious power, they are merely made up of matters already in existence. They take up water containing food and other matters, and discharge from their roots those substances that are not required for their growth. It is necessary for us to know what kind of matter is required as food for the plant, and where this is to be obtained, which we can learn only through such means as shall separate the elements of which plants are composed; in other words, we must take them apart, and examine the different pieces of which they are formed.

If we burn any vegetable substance it disappears, except a small quantity of earthy matter, which we call ashes. In this way we make an important division in the constituents of plants. One portion dissipates into the atmosphere, and the other remains as ashes.

That part which burns away during combustion is called organic matter; the ashes are called inorganic matter. The organic matter has become air, and hence we conclude that it was originally obtained from air. The inorganic matter has become earth, and was obtained from the soil.

This knowledge can do us no good except by the assistance of chemistry, which explains the properties of each part, and teaches us where it is to be found. It is not necessary for farmers to become chemists. All that is required is, that they should know enough of chemistry to understand the nature of the materials of which their crops are composed, and how those materials are to be used to the best advantage.

This amount of knowledge may be easily acquired, and should be possessed by every person, old or young, whether actually engaged in the cultivation of the soil or not. All are dependent on vegetable productions, not only for food, but for every comfort and convenience of life. It is the object of this book to teach children the first principles of agriculture: and it contains all that is absolutely necessary to an understanding of the practical operations of cultivation, etc.

We will first examine the organic part of plants, or that which is driven away during combustion or burning. This matter, though apparently lost, is only changed in form.

It consists of one solid substance, carbon (or charcoal), and three gases, oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen. These four kinds of matter constitute nearly the whole of most plants, the ashes forming often less than one part in one hundred of their dry weight.

When wood is burned in a close vessel, or otherwise protected from the air, its carbon becomes charcoal. All plants contain this substance, it forming usually about one half of their dry weight. The remainder of their organic part consists of the three gases named above. By the word gas, we mean air. Oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen, when pure, are always in the form of air. Oxygen has the power of uniting with many substances, forming compounds which are different from either of their constituents alone. Thus: oxygen unites with iron and forms oxide of iron or iron-rust, which does not resemble the gray metallic iron nor the gas oxygen; oxygen unites with carbon and forms carbonic acid, which is an invisible gas, but not at all like pure oxygen; oxygen combines with hydrogen and forms water. All of the water, ice, steam, etc., are composed of these two gases. We know this because we can artificially decompose, or separate, all water, and obtain as a result simply oxygen and hydrogen, or we can combine these two gases and thus form pure water; oxygen combines with nitrogen and forms nitric acid. These chemical changes and combinations take place only under certain circumstances, which, so far as they affect agriculture, will be considered in the following pages.

As the organic elements of plants are obtained from matters existing in the atmosphere which surrounds our globe, we will examine its constitution.