ASHES. The earthy residuum, from the combustion of any organic substance as vegetable matter, wood, coal, etc., is termed ash or ashes. In an agneultural sense they are valuable as containing pot ash, one of the important constituents in all fertile soils. The ancients were well acquainted with the use of ashes as ma nure, even to the burnim, of twigs and dry branches, for the sal'Ke of the ashes they contained The burning of stubble, for the same purpose, was practiced both by the Jews and Romans, and also by the ancient Britons. Ashes vary in potash, accordinm to the wood employed The wood oethe oak, divested of the hark, contains but about 2 parts of ash in 1,000 parts, while the bark contains 60 parts. Poplar wood contains 8 parts of ash, and the bark 72 parts. The wood of the mul berry 7 parts in 1,000, and the bark 89 parts. The wood of horse chestnut con tains 35, and wheat straw 43 parts in 1,000. Yet this is no criterion of their value as manure, since it is no index to the potash they eontain. The following
table will show the potash (parts) contained in 10,000 parts of some well known substanees, compiled by Davy, as follows: Poplar, io,00n parts produced .............
Beech, 12 Oak, Elm, 131Vine, fit Thistle, " 53 ti Fern, 92 fit Cow Thistle " , 195 Ben s, 219Vetches, " 275 it Wormwood, " 710 Fumitory, " 790 Corn-cobs are so rieh, that the ash has ly en used as a substitute for saleratns, for raising bread, and the ashes are now carefully saved in many of the great corn regions of the West, as a, manure for the land. Coal ashes contains but little potash—the constituents of value being lime and gypsum, about two per cent in a hula-. dred of each. They are valuable, however, as a divisor of the soil, and on- stiff clays may be used until it composes about one quarter of the soil. (See articles, Alkali and Potash.)