Peroxide of iron .29 0 2 Potash 34.51 15 5 6/10ths.  Soda 1.87 0 13 3/10ths. ----- --- ---------- Total 99.98 44 6 l/10ths.

Analysis of Straw with its proportion of Chaff.
Per centage.       Removed per acre.
lbs.    ozs. 
Silica                   69.36            111    1 7/10ths. 
Phosphoric acid           5.24              8    6 7/10ths. 
Sulphuric acid            4.45              7    2 2/10ths. 
Lime                      6.96             11    2 2/20ths. 
Magnesia                  1.45              2    5
Peroxide of iron           .29              1    2
Potash                   11.79             18   14
Soda                      none               none. 
Chloride of sodium         "                  "
-----            ---   -----------
Total                     99.54           160    1 l/10ths.

If we subtract the 111 pounds of silica from 160 pounds of minerals in the straw and chaff, the difference between what are left and those in wheat, is not great.  As the stems and leaves of wheat plants grow before their seeds, if all the phosphoric acid, potash, and lime available in the soil is consumed before the organization of the seeds begin, from what source is nature to draw her supply of these ingredients to form a good crop of wheat?  If the farmer could reverse the order of nature, and grow a good supply of seeds first, and make straw afterwards, then many a one would harvest more wheat and less straw.  But the cultivator must grow the stems, roots, and leaves of wheat, corn, and cotton, before nature will begin to form the seeds of these several plants:  and every one should know that the atoms in the soil, which are consumed in organizing the bodies of cultivated plants, are, in the main, identical in kind with those required to make their seeds.  The proportions, however, differ very considerably.  Thus, while 100 parts of the ash of wheat contain an average of 45 parts of phosphoric acid, 100 of the ash of the wheat straw contain an average of only 5 parts.  The difference is as 9 to 1.  In magnesia the disparity is only a little less striking.

In what are called the organic elements of wheat (the combustible part) there are seven times more nitrogen in 100 pounds than in a like weight of straw.  Hence, if the farmer converts straw into manure or compost, with the view ultimately of transforming it into wheat, it will take 7 pounds of straw to yield nitrogen enough to form one pound of wheat.  Few are aware how much labor and money is annually lost by the feeding of plants on food not strictly adapted to the peculiar wants of nature in organizing the same.  It is true, that most farmers depend on the natural fertility of the soil to nourish their crops, with perhaps the aid of a little stable and barn-yard manure, given to a part of them.  As the natural resources