Elements of Scientific Agriculture (1860)

Seitenzahl:

164

Gewicht:

249 g

Erschienen bei:

Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Kurzbeschreibung

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: 16 POTASH. The organic part of plants, although so much the larger, consists at most of four substances; but in the ash, we occasionally find as many as ten. These are named as follows: Potash, Soda, Lime, Magnesia, Oxide of Iron, Oxide of Manganese, Silica, Chlorine, Sulphuric Acid (oil of vitriol), and Phosphoric Jlcid. Here is a list of what may seem very hard names, but neither the farmer nor the scholar must be frightened at them: when he has once seen the substances to which they belong, and has learned by experience their more important properties, he will perceive that he is really able to comprehend something about them, and will at once recover from the feeling of dread and aversion which they at first excited. There may be some consolation, too, in the knowledge that the above list comprises the greater portion of the new words which will be employed in the succeeding chapters of this little work. We will then now commence with good courage, and notice each of these inorganic substances separately. Potash is well known as the extract by water from wood ashes, boiled down to dryness. a. It attracts moisture from the air when strong, and, if touched to the tongue, causes an acrid burning sensation called by chemists an alkaline taste: it is often strong enough to destroy the skin, and may be purified to such a strength as to corrode almost every perishable substance. 6. When purified in the ordinary way, potash forms pearlash, which is simply potash deprived of the foreign bodies with which it was contaminated, and carbonated or combined with carbonic acid: in this state it is nearly white, c. Potash is quite abundant in plants: more so in some classes than others. It is injurious to some kinds of weeds, or at least is used to extirpate them by bringing in be...

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Mehr von:  John Pitkin Norton, Cambridge Scholars Publishing