The Elements of Agriculture / A Book for Young Farmers, with Questions Prepared for the Use of Schools

by George E. Waring

What is the reason for this difference?

In what part of the grain does phosphoric acid exist most largely?

This may at first seem an unimportant matter, but on examination we shall see the use of it. The straw is intended to support the grain and leaves, and to convey the sap from the roots to the upper portions of the plant. To perform these offices, strength is required, and this is given by the silica, and the woody fibre which forms so large a proportion of the stalk. The silica is combined with an alkali, and constitutes the glassy coating of the straw. While the plant is young, this coating is hardly apparent, but as it grows older, as the grain becomes heavier, (verging towards ripeness), the silicious coating of the stalk assumes a more prominent character, and gives to the straw sufficient strength to support the golden head. The straw is not the most important part of the plant as food, and therefore requires but little phosphoric acid.

Why is Graham flour more wholesome than fine flour?

Are the ashes of all plants the same in their composition?

The grain, on the contrary, is especially intended as food, and therefore must contain a large proportion of phosphoric acid—this being, as we have already learned, necessary to the formation of bone—while, as it has no necessity for strength, and as silica is not needed by animals, this ingredient exists in the grain only in a very small proportion. It may be well to observe that the phosphoric acid of grain exists most largely in the hard portions near the shell, or bran. This is one of the reasons why Graham flour is more wholesome than fine flour. It contains all of the nutritive materials which render the grain valuable as food, while flour which is very finely bolted[L] contains only a small part of the outer portions of the grain (where the phosphoric acid, protein and fatty matters exist most largely). The starchy matter in the interior of the grain, which is the least capable of giving strength to the animal, is carefully separated, and used as food for man, while the better portions, not being ground so finely, are rejected. This one thing alone may be sufficient to account for the fact, that the lives of men have become shorter and less blessed with health and strength, than they were in the good old days when a stone mortar and a coarse sieve made a respectable flour mill.

Another important fact concerning the ashes of plants is the difference of their composition in different plants. Thus, the most prominent ingredient in the ash of the potato is potash; of wheat and other grains, phosphoric acid; of meadow hay, silica; of clover, lime; of beans, potash, etc. In grain, potash (or soda), etc., are among the important ingredients.

Of what advantage are these differences to the farmer?

Of what are plants composed?

These differences are of great importance to the practical farmer, as by understanding what kind of plants use the most of one ingredient, and what kind requires another in large proportion, he can regulate his crops so as to prevent his soil from being exhausted more in one ingredient than in the others, and can also manure his land with reference to the crop which he intends to grow. The tables of analyses in the fifth section will point out these differences accurately.