Some soils contain already the chemical ingredients which wood ashes
supply. If lime be applied to a calcareous soil, it will do no good;
there was no want of lime there before; if potash be added to a soil
already abounding in it, no effect will be seen in the crops. Ashes
contain lime and potash (phosphate of lime and silicate of potash). If
a soil is naturally rich in these, the addition of ashes would be
useless. Such cases show the true benefits of a _really_ scientific
knowledge of soils and manures. Every plant that grows takes out of
the soil certain qualities. Wheat, among other things, extracts
largely of its potash; Indian corn abstracts but little; potatoes
extract phosphate of magnesia, etc. A chemist would say, at once,
apply that kind of manure which is rich in the peculiar property
extracted by your wheat, corn, or potatoes! What manure is that? Here
again science must help. It analyzes manures—gives the farmer the
choice among them. The soil being known, the properties required by
different crops being known—the farmer applies that manure which
contains what the soil lacks. Experiments have seemed to show, that,
for purposes of tillage, _leached_ ashes are just as good as the
_unleached_. So that housewives may have all the use of their ashes
for soap, and then employ them in the garden. Leached ashes become
better by being exposed for some time in the air absorbing from the
atmosphere fertilizing qualities (carbonic acid?)
So valuable are ashes regarded in Europe, that they are frequently
hauled by farmers from twenty miles’ distance—and on Long Island they
bring eight cents a bushel.
The ashes of different kinds of wood are of very unequal value—that of
the oak the least, and that of beech the most valuable. The latter
wood constitutes two-thirds of the fire-wood of this region, and the
ashes are therefore the very best.
A coat of ashes may be laid, in the spring, over the whole garden and
spaded in with the barnyard manure.
They may be dug in about gooseberry and currant bushes.
They are excellent about the trunks of fruit-trees, spreading the old
each year, and renewing the deposit.
They may be thinly spread over the grass-plat in the dooryard, as they
will give vigor and deeper color and strength to the grass.
We have usually added about one shovelful of ashes to every _twenty_
in making a compost for flowers, roses, shrubs, etc.
Ashes are peculiarly good for all kinds of melon, squash, and cucumber
vines. This is well known to those who raise watermelons on burnt
fields, on old charcoal pits, etc. We have seen statements of
cucumbers being planted upon a peck of pure, leached ashes, in a hole
in the ground, and thriving with great vigor. The ashes of vines show
a great amount of potash; and as wood ashes afford this substance
abundantly, its use would seem to be indicated by theory as well as
confirmed by experiment.
Lastly, whenever ground is liable to suffer severely from drought, we
would advise a liberal use of ashes and salt.