text: Stories from Tagore/Once there was a King


text: Stories from Tagore/The Child's Return

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Stories from Tagore/The Child's Return


text:
The Hungry Stones

 * The Modern Review/Volume 7/Number 2/The Hungry Stones
 * The Hungry Stones and Other Stories/The Hungry Stones

title: The Hungry Stones


text:
The Kingdom of Cards

Once upon a time there was a lonely island in a distant sea where lived the Kings and Queens, the Aces and the Knaves, in the Kingdom of Cards. The Tens and Nines, with the Twos and Threes, and all the other members, had long ago settled there also. But these were not twice-born people, like the famous Court Cards.

The Ace, the King, and the Knave were the three highest castes. The fourth Caste was made up of a mixture of the lower Cards. The Twos and Threes were lowest of all. These inferior Cards were never allowed to sit in the same row with the great Court Cards.

Wonderful indeed were the regulations and rules of that island kingdom. The particular rank of each individual had been settled from time immemorial. Every one had his own appointed work, and never did anything else. An unseen hand appeared to be directing them wherever they went,—according to the Rules.

No one in the Kingdom of Cards had any occasion to think: no one had any need to come to any decision: no one was ever required to debate any new subject. The citizens all moved along in a listless groove without speech. When they fell, they made no noise. They lay down on their backs, and gazed upward at the sky with each prim feature firmly fixed for ever.

There was a remarkable stillness in the Kingdom of Cards. Satisfaction and contentment were complete in all their rounded wholeness. There was never any uproar or violence. There was never any excitement or enthusiasm.

The great ocean, crooning its lullaby with one unceasing melody, lapped the island to sleep with a thousand soft touches of its wave's white hands. The vast sky, like the outspread azure wings of the brooding mother-bird, nestled the island round with its downy plume. For on the distant horizon a deep blue line betokened another shore. But no sound of quarrel or strife could reach the Island of Cards, to break its calm repose.

In that far-off foreign land across the sea, there lived a young Prince whose mother was a sorrowing queen. This queen had fallen from favour, and was living with her only son on the seashore. The Prince passed his childhood alone and forlorn, sitting by his forlorn mother, weaving the net of his big desires. He longed to go in search of the Flying Horse, the Jewel in the Cobra's hood, the Rose of Heaven, the Magic Roads, or to find where the Princess Beauty was sleeping in the Ogre's castle over the thirteen rivers and across the seven seas.

From the Son of the Merchant at school the young Prince learnt the stories of foreign kingdoms. From the Son of the Kotwal he learnt the adventures of the Two Genii of the Lamp. And when the rain came beating down, and the clouds covered the sky, he would sit on the threshold facing the sea, and say to his sorrowing mother: "Tell me, mother, a story of some very far-off land."

And his mother would tell him an endless tale she had heard in her childhood of a wonderful country beyond the sea where dwelt the Princess Beauty. And the heart of the young Prince would become sick with longing, as he sat on the threshold, looking out on the ocean, listening to his mother's wonderful story, while the rain outside came beating down and the grey clouds covered the sky.

One day the Son of the Merchant came to the Prince, and said boldly: "Comrade, my studies are over. I am now setting out on my travels to seek my fortunes on the sea. I have come to bid you good-bye."

The Prince said; "I will go with you."

And the Son of Kotwal said also: "Comrades, trusty and true, you will not leave me behind. I also will be your companion."

Then the young Prince said to his sorrowing mother; "Mother, I am now setting out on my travels to seek my fortune. When I come back once more, I shall surely have found some way to remove all your sorrow."

So the Three Companions set out on their travels together. In the harbour were anchored the twelve ships of the merchant, and the Three Companions got on board. The south wind was blowing, and the twelve ships sailed away, as fast as the desires which rose in the Prince's breast.

At the Conch Shell Island they filled one ship with conchs. At the Sandal Wood Island they filled a second ship with sandal-wood, and at the Coral Island they filled a third ship with coral.

Four years passed away, and they filled four more ships, one with ivory, one with musk, one with cloves, and one with nutmegs.

But when these ships were all loaded a terrible tempest arose. The ships were all of them sunk, with their cloves and nutmeg, and musk and ivory, and coral and sandal-wood and conchs. But the ship with the Three Companions struck on an island reef, buried them safe ashore, and itself broke in pieces.

This was the famous Island of Cards, where lived the Ace and King and Queen and Knave, with the Nines and Tens and all the other Members—according to the Rules.

Up till now there had been nothing to disturb that island stillness. No new thing had ever happened. No discussion had ever been held.

And then, of a sudden, the Three Companions appeared, thrown up by the sea,—and the Great Debate began. There were three main points of dispute.

First, to what caste should these unclassed strangers belong? Should they rank with the Court Cards? Or were they merely lower-caste people, to be ranked with the Nines and Tens? No precedent could be quoted to decide this weighty question.

Secondly, what was their clan? Had they the fairer hue and bright complexion of the Hearts, or was theirs the darker complexion of the Clubs? Over this question there were interminable disputes. The whole marriage system of the island, with its intricate regulations, would depend on its nice adjustment.

Thirdly, what food should they take? With whom should they live and sleep? And should their heads be placed south-west, north-west, or only north-east? In all the Kingdom of Cards a series of problems so vital and critical had never been debated before.

But the Three Companions grew desperately hungry. They had to get food in some way or other. So while this debate went on, with its interminable silence and pauses, and while the Aces called their own meeting, and formed themselves into a Committee, to find some obsolete dealing with the question, the Three Companions themselves were eating all they could find, and drinking out of every vessel, and breaking all regulations.

Even the Twos and Threes were shocked at this outrageous behaviour. The Threes said; "Brother Twos, these people are openly shameless!" And the Twos said: "Brother Threes, they are evidently of lower caste than ourselves!" After their meal was over, the Three Companions went for a stroll in the city.

When they saw the ponderous people moving in their dismal processions with prim and solemn faces, then the Prince turned to the Son of the Merchant and the Son of the Kotwal, and threw back his head, and gave one stupendous laugh.

Down Royal Street and across Ace Square and along the Knave Embankment ran the quiver of this strange, unheard-of laughter, the laughter that, amazed at itself, expired in the vast vacuum of silence.

The Son of the Kotwal and the Son of the Merchant were chilled through to the bone by the ghost-like stillness around them. They turned to the Prince, and said: "Comrade, let us away. Let us not stop for a moment in this awful land of ghosts."

But the Prince said: "Comrades, these people resemble men, so I am going to find out, by shaking them upside down and outside in, whether they have a single drop of warm living blood left in their veins."

The days passed one by one, and the placid existence of the Island went on almost without a ripple. The Three Companions obeyed no rules nor regulations. They never did anything correctly either in sitting or standing or turning themselves round or lying on their back. On the contrary, wherever they saw these things going on precisely and exactly according to the Rules, they gave way to inordinate laughter. They remained unimpressed altogether by the eternal gravity of those eternal regulations.

One day the great Court Cards came to the Son of the Kotwal and the Son of the Merchant and the Prince.

"Why," they asked slowly, "are you not moving according to the Rules?"

The Three Companions answered: "Because that is our Ichcha (wish)."

The great Court Cards with hollow, cavernous voices, as if slowly awakening from an age-long dream, said together: "Ich-cha! And pray who is Ich-cha?"

They could not understand who Ichcha was then, but the whole island was to understand it by-and-by. The first glimmer of light passed the threshold of their minds when they found out, through watching the actions of the Prince, that they might move in a straight line in an opposite direction from the one in which they had always gone before. Then they made another startling discovery, that there was another side to the Cards which they had never yet noticed with attention. This was the beginning of the change.

Now that the change had begun, the Three Companions were able to initiate them more and more deeply into the mysteries of Ichcha. The Cards gradually became aware that life was not bound by regulations. They began to feel a secret satisfaction in the kingly power of choosing for themselves.

But with this first impact of Ichcha the whole pack of cards began to totter slowly, and then tumble down to the ground. The scene was like that of some huge python awaking from a long sleep, as it slowly unfolds its numberless coils with a quiver that runs through its whole frame.

Hitherto the Queens of Spades and Clubs and Diamonds and Hearts had remained behind curtains with eyes that gazed vacantly into space, or else remained fixed upon the ground.

And now, all of a sudden, on an afternoon in spring the Queen of Hearts from the balcony raised her dark eyebrows for a moment, and cast a single glance upon the Prince from the corner of her eye.

"Great God," cried the Prince, "I thought they were all painted images. But I am wrong. They are women after all."

Then the young Prince called to his side his two Companions, and said in a meditative voice; "My comrades! There is a charm about these ladies that I never noticed before. When I saw that glance of the Queen's dark, luminous eyes, brightening with new emotion, it seemed to me like the first faint streak of dawn in a newly created world."

The two Companions smiled a knowing smile, and said: "Is that really so, Prince?"

And the poor Queen of Hearts from that day went from bad to worse. She began to forget all rules in a truly scandalous manner. If, for instance, her place in the row was beside the Knave, she suddenly found herself quite accidentally standing beside the Prince instead. At this, the Knave, with motionless face and solemn voice, would say: "Queen, you have made a mistake."

And the poor Queen of Hearts' red cheeks would get redder than ever. But the Prince would come gallantly to her rescue and say: "No! There is no mistake. From to-day I am going to be Knave!"

Now it came to pass that, while every one was trying to correct the improprieties of the guilty Queen of Hearts, they began to make mistakes themselves. The Aces found themselves elbowed out by the Kings. The Kings got muddled up with the Knaves. The Nines and Tens assumed airs as though they belonged to the Great Court Cards. The Twos and Threes were found secretly taking the places specially resented for the Fours and Fives. Confusion had never been so confounded before.

Many spring seasons had come and gone in that Island of Cards. The Kokil, the bird of Spring, had sung its song year after year. But it had never stirred the blood as it stirred it now. In days gone by the sea had sung its tireless melody. But, then, it had proclaimed only the inflexible monotony of the Rule. And suddenly its waves were telling, through all their flashing light and luminous shade and myriad voices, the deepest yearnings of the heart of love!

Where are vanished now their prim, round, regular, complacent features? Here is a face full of love-sick longing. Here is a heart heating wild with regrets. Here is a mind racked sore with doubts. Music and sighing, and smiles and tears, are filling the air. Life is throbbing; hearts are breaking; passions are kindling.

Every one is now thinking of his own appearance, and comparing himself with others. The Ace of Clubs is musing to himself, that the King of Spades may be just passably good-looking. "But," says he, "when I walk down the street you have only to see how people's eyes turn towards me." The King of Spades is saying; "Why on earth is that Ace of Clubs always straining his neck and strutting about like a peacock? He imagines all the Queens are dying of love for him, while the real fact is—" Here he pauses, and examines his face in the glass.

But the Queens were the worst of all. They began to spend all their time in dressing themselves up to the Nines. And the Nines would become their hopeless and abject slaves. But their cutting remarks about one another were more shocking still.

So the young men would sit listless on the leaves under the trees, lolling with outstretched limbs in the forest shade. And the young maidens, dressed in pale-blue robes, would come walking accidentally to the same shade of the same forest by the same trees, and turn their eyes as though they saw no one there, and look as though they came out to see nothing at all. And then one young man more forward than the rest in a fit of madness would dare to go near to a maiden in blue. But, as he drew near, speech would forsake him. He would stand there tongue-tied and foolish, and the favourable moment would pass.

The Kokil birds were singing in the boughs overhead. The mischievous South wind was blowing; it disarrayed the hair, it whispered in the ear, and stirred the music in the blood. The leaves of the trees were murmuring with rustling delight. And the ceaseless sound of the ocean made all the mute longings of the heart of man and maid surge backwards and forwards on the full springtide of love.

The Three Companions had brought into the dried-up channels of the Kingdom of Cards the full flood-tide of a new life.

And, though the tide was full, there-was a pause as though the rising waters would not break into foam but remain suspended for ever. There were no outspoken words, only a cautious going forward one step and receding two. All seemed busy heaping up their unfulfilled desires like castles in the air, or fortresses of sand. They were pale and speechless, their eyes were burning, their lips trembling with unspoken secrets.

The Prince saw what was wrong. He summoned every one on the Island and said: "Bring hither the flutes and the cymbals, the pipes and drums. Let all be played together, and raise loud shouts of rejoicing. For the Queen of Hearts this very night is going to choose her Mate!"

So the Tens and Nines began to blow on their flutes and pipes; the Eights and Sevens played on their sackbuts and viols; and even the Twos and Threes began to beat madly on their drums.

When this tumultous gust of music came, it swept away at one blast all those sighings and mopings. And then what a torrent of laughter and words poured forth! There were daring proposals and locking refusals, and gossip and chatter, and jests and merriment. It was like the swaying and shaking, and rustling and soughing, in a summer gale, of a million leaves and branches in the depth of the primeval forest.

But the Queen of Hearts, in a rose-red robe, sat silent in the shadow of her secret bower, and listened to the great uproarious sound of music and mirth, that came floating towards her. She shut her eyes, and dreamt her dream of lore. And when she opened them she found the Prince seated on the ground before her gazing up at her face. And she covered her eyes with both hands, and shrank back quivering with an inward tumult of joy.

And the Prince passed the whole day alone, walking by the side of the surging sea. He carried in his mind that startled look, that shrinking gesture of the Queen, and his heart beat high with hope.

That night the serried, gaily-dressed ranks of young men and maidens waited with smiling faces at the Palace Gates. The Palace Hall was lighted with fairy lamps and festooned with the flowers of spring. Slowly the Queen of Hearts entered, and the whole assembly rose to greet her. With a jasmine garland in her hand, she stood before the Prince with downcast eyes. In her lowly bashfulness she could hardly raise the garland to the neck of the Mate she had chosen. But the Prince bowed his head, and the garland slipped to its place. The assembly of youths and maidens had waited her choice with eager, expectant hush. And when the choice was made, the whole vast concourse rocked and swayed with a tumult of wild delight. And the sound of their shouts was heard in every part of the island, and by ships far out at sea. Never had such a shout been raised in the Kingdom of Cards before.

And they carried the Prince and his Bride, and seated them on the throne, and crowned them then and there in the Ancient Island of Cards.

And the sorrowing Mother Queen, on the 'far-off island shore on the other side of the sea, came sailing to her son's new kingdom in a ship adorned with gold.

And the citizens are no longer regulated according to the Rules, but are good or bad, or both, according to their Ichcha.

title: The Kingdom of Cards


text:
Two Lovely Black Eyes!

Strolling so happy down Bethnal Green, This gay youth you might have seen, Tompkins and I with his girl between, Oh what a surprise ....... I prais'd the Conservatives frank and free, Tompkins got angry so speedilee, All in a moment he handed to me, Two lovely black eyes .......

CHORUS. Two lovely black eyes ....... Oh what a surprise ....... Only for telling a man he was wrong, Two lovely black eyes .......

Next time I argued I thought it best, To give the conservative side a rest, The merits of Gladstone I freely pressed, When oh, what a surprise! The chap I had met was a Tory true, Nothing the Liberals right could do, This was my share of that argument too, Two lovely black eyes!

(Chorus,) Two lovely black eyes, &c.

The moral you've caught I can hardly doubt, Never on politics rave and shout, Leave it to others to fight it out, If you would be wise. Better, far better it is to let, Lib'rals and Tories alone, you bet, Unless you're willing and anxious to get, Two lovely black eyes!

(Chorus,) Two lovely black eyes, &c.

title: Two Lovely Black Eyes!


text: Talk:Two Lovely Black Eyes!

title: Talk:Two Lovely Black Eyes!


text:
Author:Charles Coborn

Works

 * Two Lovely Black Eyes!

title: Author:Charles Coborn


text: The Collected Works of Dugald Stewart/Volume 1/Advertisement by the Editor


text:
User talk:41.0.11.130

Welcome

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title: User talk:41.0.11.130


text:
Page:Collected Works of Dugald Stewart Volume 1.djvu/18

xii


text: The Collected Works of Dugald Stewart/Volume 1/Preface


text: Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things/The Story of Mimi-Nashi-Hōïchi


text: Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things/Oshidori


text: Talk:The Collected Works of Dugald Stewart/Volume 1


text: Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things/Diplomacy


text:
Yuki-onna

In a village of Musashi Province, there lived two woodcutters: Mosaku and Minokichi. At the time of which I am speaking, Mosaku was an old man; and Minokichi, his apprentice, was a lad of eighteen years. Every day they went together to a forest situated about five miles from their village. On the way to that forest there is a wide river to cross; and there is a ferryboat. Several times a bridge was built where the ferry is; but the bridge was each time carried away by a flood. No common bridge can resist the current there when the river rises.

Mosaku and Minokichi were on their way home, one very cold evening, when a great snowstorm overtook them. They reached the ferry; and they found that the boatman had gone away, leaving his boat on the other side of the river. It was no day for swimming; and the woodcutters took shelter in the ferryman's hut,— thinking themselves lucky to find any shelter at all. There was no brazier in the hut, nor any place in which to make a fire: it was only a two-mat hut, with a single door, but no window. Mosaku and Minokichi fastened the door, and lay down to rest, with their straw rain-coats over them. At first they did not feel very cold; and they thought that the storm would soon be over.

The old man almost immediately fell asleep; but the boy, Minokichi, lay awake a long time, listening to the awful wind, and the continual slashing of the snow against the door. The river was roaring; and the hut swayed and creaked like a junk at sea. It was a terrible storm; and the air was every moment becoming colder; and Minokichi shivered under his raincoat. But at last, in spite of the cold, he too fell asleep.

He was awakened by a showering of snow in his face. The door of the hut had been forced open; and, by the snow-light (yuki-akari), he saw a woman in the room,— a woman all in white. She was bending above Mosaku, and blowing her breath upon him;— and her breath was like a bright white smoke. Almost in the same moment she turned to Minokichi, and stooped over him. He tried to cry out, but found that he could not utter any sound. The white woman bent down over him, lower and lower, until her face almost touched him; and he saw that she was very beautiful,— though her eyes made him afraid. For a little time she continued to look at him;— then she smiled, and she whispered:— "I intended to treat you like the other man. But I cannot help feeling some pity for you,— because you are so young.... You are a pretty boy, Minokichi; and I will not hurt you now. But, if you ever tell anybody— even your own mother about what you have seen this night, I shall know it; and then I will kill you.... Remember what I say!"

With these words, she turned from him, and passed through the doorway. Then he found himself able to move; and he sprang up, and looked out. But the woman was nowhere to be seen; and the snow was driving furiously into the hut. Minokichi closed the door, and secured it by fixing several billets of wood against it. He wondered if the wind had blown it open;— he thought that he might have been only dreaming, and might have mistaken the gleam of the snow-light in the doorway for the figure of a white woman: but he could not be sure. He called to Mosaku, and was frightened because the old man did not answer. He put out his hand in the dark, and touched Mosaku's face, and found that it was ice! Mosaku was stark and dead....

By dawn the storm was over; and when the ferryman returned to his station, a little after sunrise, he found Minokichi lying senseless beside the frozen body of Mosaku. Minokichi was promptly cared for, and soon came to himself; but he remained a long time ill from the effects of the cold of that terrible night. He had been greatly frightened also by the old man's death; but he said nothing about the vision of the woman in white. As soon as he got well again, he returned to his calling, going alone every morning to the forest, and coming back at nightfall with his bundles of wood, which his mother helped him to sell.

One evening, in the winter of the following year, as he was on his way home, he overtook a girl who happened to be traveling by the same road. She was a tall, slim girl, very good-looking; and she answered Minokichi's greeting in a voice as pleasant to the ear as the voice of a song-bird. Then he walked beside her; and they began to talk. The girl said that her name was O-Yuki; that she had lately lost both of her parents; and that she was going to Yedo, where she happened to have some poor relations, who might help her to find a situation as servant. Minokichi soon felt charmed by this strange girl; and the more that he looked at her, the handsomer she appeared to be. He asked her whether she was yet betrothed; and she answered, laughingly, that she was free. Then, in her turn, she asked Minokichi whether he was married, or pledged to marry; and he told her that, although he had only a widowed mother to support, the question of an "honorable daughter-in-law" had not yet been considered, as he was very young.... After these confidences, they walked on for a long while without speaking; but, as the proverb declares, Ki ga aréba, mé mo kuchi hodo ni mono wo iu: "When the wish is there, the eyes can say as much as the mouth." By the time they reached the village, they had become very much pleased with each other; and then Minokichi asked O-Yuki to rest awhile at his house. After some shy hesitation, she went there with him; and his mother made her welcome, and prepared a warm meal for her. O-Yuki behaved so nicely that Minokichi's mother took a sudden fancy to her, and persuaded her to delay her journey to Yedo. And the natural end of the matter was that Yuki never went to Yedo at all. She remained in the house, as an "honorable daughter-in-law."

O-Yuki proved a very good daughter-in-law. When Minokichi's mother came to die,— some five years later,— her last words were words of affection and praise for the wife of her son. And O-Yuki bore Minokichi ten children, boys and girls,— handsome children all of them, and very fair of skin. The country-folk thought O-Yuki a wonderful person, by nature different from themselves. Most of the peasant-women age early; but O-Yuki, even after having become the mother of ten children, looked as young and fresh as on the day when she had first come to the village.

One night, after the children had gone to sleep, O-Yuki was sewing by the light of a paper lamp; and Minokichi, watching her, said:— "To see you sewing there, with the light on your face, makes me think of a strange thing that happened when I was a lad of eighteen. I then saw somebody as beautiful and white as you are now— indeed, she was very like you." . . . Without lifting her eyes from her work, O-Yuki responded:— "Tell me about her.... Where did you see her?"

Then Minokichi told her about the terrible night in the ferryman's hut,— and about the White Woman that had stooped above him, smiling and whispering,— and about the silent death of old Mosaku. And he said:— "Asleep or awake, that was the only time that I saw a being as beautiful as you. Of course, she was not a human being; and I was afraid of her,— very much afraid,— but she was so white I . . . Indeed, I have never been sure whether it was a dream that I saw, or the Woman of the Snow." . ..

O-Yuki flung down her sewing, and arose, and bowed above Minokichi where he sat, and shrieked into his face: "It was I— I— I! Yuki it was! And I told you then that I would kill you if you ever said one word about it! . . . But for those children asleep there, I would kill you this moment! And now you had better take very, very good care of them; for if ever they have reason to complain of you, I will treat you as you deserve!" . ..

Even as she screamed, her voice became thin, like a crying of wind;— then she melted into a bright white mist that spired to the roof-beams, and shuddered away through the smoke-hole.... Never again was she seen.

title: Yuki-onna


text:
Page:Collected Works of Dugald Stewart Volume 1.djvu/19

 PREFACE.

CONTAINING SOME CRITICAL REMARKS ON THE DISCOURSE PREFIXED TO THE FRENCH ENCYCLOPÉDIE.

I ventured to undertake the task of contributing a Preliminary Dissertation to these Supplemental Volumes of the Encyclopædia Britannica, my original intention was, after the example of D'Alembert, to have begun with a general survey of the various departments of human knowledge. The outline of such a survey, sketched by the comprehensive genius of Bacon, together with the corrections and improvements suggested by his illustrious disciple, would, I thought, have rendered it comparatively easy to adapt their intellectual map to the present advanced state of the sciences; while the unrivalled authority which their united work has long maintained in the republic of letters, would, I flattered myself, have softened those criticisms which might be expected to be incurred by any similar attempt of a more modern hand. On a closer examination, however, of their labours, I found myself under the necessity of abandoning this design. Doubts immediately occurred to me with respect to the justness of their logical views, and soon terminated in a conviction, that these views are radically and essentially erroneous. Instead, therefore, of endeavouring to give additional currency to speculations which I conceived to be fundamentally unsound, I resolved to avail myself of the present opportunity


text: Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things/Ubazakura


text: Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things


text:
Page:Messages and Letters of William Henry Harrison Vol. 1.djvu/28

xxiv


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Page:Collected Works of Dugald Stewart Volume 1.djvu/20

2 to point out their most important defects,—defects which, I am nevertheless very ready to acknowledge, it is much more easy to remark than to supply. The critical strictures which, in the course of this discussion, I shall have occasion to offer on my predecessors, will, at the same time, account for my forbearing to substitute a new map of my own, instead of that to which the names of Bacon and D'Alembert have lent so great and so well-merited a celebrity; and may perhaps suggest a doubt, whether the period be yet arrived for hazarding again, with any reasonable prospect of success, a repetition of their bold experiment. For the length to which these strictures are likely to extend, the only apology I have to offer is the peculiar importance of the questions to which they relate, and the high authority of the writers whose opinions I presume to controvert. Before entering on the main subject, D'Alembert is at pains to explain a distinction, which he represents as of considerable importance, between the Genealogy of the sciences, and the Encyclopedical arrangement of the objects of human knowledge. "In examining the former," he observes, "our aim is, by remounting to the origin and genesis of our ideas, to trace the causes to which the sciences owe their birth; and to mark the characteristics by which they are distinguished from each other. In order to ascertain the latter, it is necessary to comprehend, in one general scheme, all the various departments of study; to arrange them into proper classes; and to point out their mutual relations and dependencies." Such a scheme is sometimes likened by D'Alembert to a map or chart of the intellectual world; sometimes to a genealogical or encyclopedical tree, indicating the manifold and complicated affinities of those studies, which, however apparently remote and unconnected, are all the common offspring of the human understanding. For


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Page:Messages and Letters of William Henry Harrison Vol. 1.djvu/29

Rh


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Page:Collected Works of Dugald Stewart Volume 1.djvu/21

Rh executing successfully this chart or tree, a philosophical delineation of the natural progress of the mind may (according to him) furnish very useful lights; although he acknowledges that the results of the two undertakings cannot fail to differ widely in many instances the laws which regulate the generation of our ideas often interfering with that systematical order in the relative arrangement of scientific pursuits, which it is the purpose of the Encyclopedical Tree to exhibit. In treating of the first of these subjects, it cannot be denied that D'Alembert has displayed much ingenuity and invention; but the depth and solidity of his general train of thought may be questioned. On various occasions, he has evidently suffered himself to be misled by a spirit of false refinement; and on others, where probably he was fully aware of his inability to render the theoretical chain complete, he seems to have aimed at concealing from his readers the faulty links, by availing himself of those epigrammatic points, and other artifices of style, with which the genius of the French language enables a skilful writer to smooth and varnish over his most illogical transitions. The most essential imperfections, however, of this historical sketch, may be fairly ascribed to a certain vagueness and indecision in the author's idea, with regard to the scope of his inquiries. What he has in general pointed at is to trace, from the theory of the Mind, and from the order followed by nature in the development of its powers, the successive steps by which


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178 magnolia, all odoriferous, has frequently the teasing nettle growing so near its large trunk as to sometimes be touched by it. Edinburgh contains a Walter Scott, a Wilson, a Jameson, but it contains also many nettles of the genus Mammalia, amongst which men hold a very prominent station. Now I have run into one of these latter gentry. To speak out at once, one of my drawings was gently purloined last evening from the rooms of the Institution. So runs the fact; perhaps a few minutes before the doors closed a somebody in a large cloak paid his shilling, entered the hall and made his round, and with great caution took a drawing from the wall, rolled it up, and walked off. The porter and men in attendance missed it almost immediately, and this morning I was asked if I or Mr. Lizars had taken it to be engraved. I immediately told Mr. Lizars; we went to Mr. Bridges, and by his advice to the court, where Captain Robeson—who, by the way, was at the battle of New Orleans—issued a warrant against a young man of the name of I——, deaf and dumb, who was strongly suspected. Gladly would I have painted a bird for the poor fellow, and I certainly did not want him arrested, but the Institution guards were greatly annoyed at the occurrence. However, I induced Mr. Lizars to call on the family of the youth, which is a very good one and well known in Edinburgh. I returned to my lodgings and on the stairs met a beggar woman with a child in her arms, but passed her without much notice beyond pitying her in her youth and poverty, reached my door, where I saw a roll of paper; I picked it up, walked in, opened it, and found my drawing of the Black-poll Warbler! Is not this a curious story? The thief—whoever he may be, God pardon him—had, we conceived, been terror-struck on hearing of the steps we had taken, and had resorted to this method of restoring the drawing before he was arrested. I was in time to stop the warrant, and the affair was silenced. During the afternoon I was called on twice

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The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Fertilizers

FERTILIZERS. Any substance applied to the soil to aid the growth of plants may properly be called a fertilizer. The name has, however, become associated with a class of materials manufactured and sold for this purpose, the handling of which now constitutes an important industry.

The constituents of the plant that it derives from the soil are nitrogen, phosphorus, sulphur, potassium, sodium, calcium, magnesium, iron, aluminum, manganese, silicon, chlorine. Of these nitrogen, phosphorus or phosphoric acid, and potassium or potash, are the substances most likely to be deficient in the soil and therefore the ones that are contained in fertilizers. A fertilizer may contain any one or more of these substances.

The chief distinction between the functions of farm manure and commercial fertilizers may be stated in a general way to be that farm manure increases crop production by improving the condition of the soil, as well as by furnishing plant nutrients, while commercial fertilizers may act directly as a plant-food material without materially affecting soil structure.

It is evident, therefore, that commercial fertilizers are not an adequate substitute for farm manure or green manures for producing permanent improvement. Their function consists in supplementing the available supply of plant-food in a soil which may be deficient in any one or more of the substances usually contained in fertilizers. On virgin soils commercial fertilizers are usually superfluous; but as loss of plant-food goes on under cropping, restitution must be made and, as this is usually not adequately done with farm manure, fertilizers are finally called upon.

Where there is large loss of plant-food from soil constituents due to leaching, there must be a large excess of potential fertility, in order that the growing crop shall at all times be supplied with available plant-food. A deficiency in any constituent will check growth by compelling the plant to depend upon a less readily available supply. Commercial fertilizers are useful by presenting readily available food to the plant when it is beginning growth and when a deficiency in the supply is likely to produce a permanent injury.

As the price of land increases, as the cost of labor becomes greater and as the value of the crop augments it becomes more important that maximum crops shall be raised, and for these reasons commercial fertilizers usually have greatest sale where agriculture is most intensive. There are also many special crops requiring more of one plant-food element than of another, and the needs of these can best be met by the use of commercial fertilizers.

Historical. — The value of animal excrements applied to soils on which crops were grown has been appreciated by the husbandman as far back as records go. Why this manure

is beneficial, and what relation its constituents bear to those of plants, are matters which have only been worked out during the last century, and knowledge of which has led to the use of fertilizers composed of mineral salts, commonly known as commercial fertilizers.

The earliest record of the use of artificial manures for increasing the yield of crops is contained in a book entitled ‘A Discourse Concerning the Vegetation of Plants.’ The title page also contains the following announcements: “Spoken by Sir Kenelm Digby, at Gresham College, on the 23d of January 1660.” The author advocates the use of saltpetre to increase the yield of crops, and says: “By the help of plain saltpetre, dilated in water and mingled with some other fit earthly substance, that may familiarize it a little with the corn into which I endeavored to introduce it, I have made the barrenest ground far outgo the richest, in giving a prodigiously plentiful harvest.” His dissertation does not, however, show any true conception of the reason for the increase in the crop through the use of this fertilizer. The almost total absence of any knowledge of the composition of plants, and the crude state of chemistry at that time, made this quite impossible.

It was not until 1804 that any light was thrown upon the subject. In that year was published ‘Recherches Chimique sur la Végétation’ by Theodore de Saussure. This brilliant French investigator was the first to appreciate the significance of the ash ingredients of plants; to point out that without them plant life was impossible, and to show that only the ash of the plant was derived from the soil.

Justus von Liebig is commonly regarded as having laid the foundation upon which the commercial fertilizer industry has been built. Certainly his reports to the British Association in 1840 and again in 1842 made the British agriculturists regard as they never had done before the importance of a sufficient supply of certain readily soluble mineral substances in the soil. He supported the contention of De Saussure regarding the importance of mineral matter in the plant, and its extraction from the soil. He refuted the theory, at that time popular, that plants absorbed their carbon from humus, but made the mistake of attaching little importance to the presence of humus in the soil. He showed the importance of potash and phosphates in manures, and in his earlier writings spoke of the value of nitrogen for fertilizing crops, but afterward made the mistake of denying the usefulness of nitrogenous manures for plants, holding that the ammonia washed down by rain affords a sufficient supply.

By the middle of the 19th century it was well understood that potash, phosphoric acid and nitrogen were valuable constituents of fertilizers, and that the other mineral elements of plant-food, with the occasional exception of calcium, were always present in sufficient quantity in arable soils. It has since been shown that the family of plants known as the Leguminosæ have the ability to secure a large part, at least, of their nitrogen from the air, and that as these plants are very rich in nitrogen they leave a supply of nitrogen in organic matter in the soil when plowed under.

Complete and Incomplete Fertilizers. — Fertilizers, containing nitrogen, phosphoric acid and potash, mixed together so that an application of the preparation will result in bringing each of these substances in contact with the soil wherever applied, are called complete fertilizers. The proportions in which the constituents are mixed vary with the different brands and factories. Sometimes a fertilizer of this kind will be advertised for use on a certain crop, and will contain the nitrogen, phosphoric acid and potash in the proportion in which the manufacturer believes they will produce the best yields of that crop. He has, however, no means of knowing the requirements of the soils on which the fertilizer is to be used.

Incomplete fertilizers contain only one or two of the customary fertilizer ingredients.

Available and Unavailable Fertilizer Material. — The fertilizing constituents in a fertilizer may be present in a readily soluble or difficultly soluble condition, depending upon the chemical combinations and, to some extent, upon the physical condition in which they are found. Thus phosphoric acid when in the form of phosphate rock as it is taken from the deposits is a very difficultly soluble substance, and plants can avail themselves of it only in small quantities. After the same rock has been treated with sulphuric acid the phosphoric acid is in a form in which it can be readily used by plants. To a more limited extent the same is true of the phosphoric acid in basic slag, which, when the slag is in an unground condition, is not of much use to plants, but when the slag has been finely ground furnishes a valuable form of plant-food.

When the fertilizing material is in a condition in which it can be readily used by the plant it is said to be “available,” and when it can be used only with great difficulty it is said to be “unavailable.” It is important that the purchaser should know in what form the constituents are present in a fertilizer.

Nitrogenous Fertilizers. — Nitrogen is absorbed by most plants only in the form of a soluble salt; hence for the cereals and many other crops it is desirable either to have it in this form or to incorporate it in the soil in a condition in which it will be readily converted into a soluble condition. Plants like the clovers, alfalfa, peas, beans, etc., have the power of using the nitrogen of the air, and hence do not require nitrogenous fertilizers in such large amounts. These plants may be used to increase the supply of nitrogen in the soil. Nitrogen is the most expensive constituent of fertilizers, and is extremely important, as it is used in large amounts by plants and is likely to be deficient in soils. The form in which nitrogen is present in a fertilizer may make a great difference in its value and in the way in which it can be best applied. Nitrogenous fertilizers differ in having their nitrogen either in the form of a soluble salt or combined as organic material.

Nitrate of Soda. — This now constitutes one of the principal sources of inorganic nitrogen in artificial manures, having largely taken the place of Peruvian guano, which was used for many years, and the profitable use of which did much to promote the extensive use of commercial fertilizers. The salt occurs in the crude condition called caliche, in enormous deposits, principally in the province of Tarapaca in northern Chile. The earlier records of these deposits extend back to 1820, but it was not until several years later that they were exploited. The portion of the country in which the deposits lie is a sandy desert where rain never falls. The altitude is 3,000 to 4,000 feet above the sea-level. The deposits have been attributed to the action of minute organisms fixing in the soil, through countless ages, the nitrogen of the atmosphere, and leaving the product finally in the form of sodium nitrate that has crystallized out of solution in which it has at some time been held. Several other theories have been advanced but no wholly adequate explanation has yet been offered.

The raw product is found beneath a covering consisting of two layers, the upper one of sand and gypsum and the lower of baked clay and gravel. The thickness of the caliche varies from a few inches to 12 feet. It is extracted by boring through the upper layers and introducing a charge of blasting-powder, which, when fired, exposes a considerable quantity of the material. The nitrate is somewhat purified by crystallization before shipping. Iodine is a by-product in the purification process. The nitrate, when ready for shipment, contains about 96 per cent sodium nitrate, or about 16 per cent of nitrogen, 2 per cent of water, and small amounts of sodium chloride, sulphates, and insoluble matter.

The development of the nitrate industry may be appreciated from the fact that the product, which amounted in 1884 to 550,000 tons, increased to 1,000,000 tons in 1890, and to 1,660,000 tons in 1907. The output is exported almost entirely to Europe and the United States. It is held by persons who have examined these deposits that at the present rate of mining they will be exhausted by the year 1930, in which case a serious deficiency in fertilizer nitrogen will occur, unless a new supply shall meanwhile have been discovered.

Because of its easy availability, sodium nitrate acts quickly in inducing growth. For this reason it is used much by market gardeners, and for other purposes when a rapid growth is required. It is the most active form of nitrogen, with the possible exception of calcium nitrate. A light dressing on meadow land in early spring assists greatly in hastening growth by furnishing available nitrogen before the conditions are favorable for making available the more inert nitrogen of the soil. On small grain a similarly useful purpose is served where the soil is not rich.

Owing to the fact that nitrate is not absorbed by the soil in large quantities, it is easily lost in the drainage water; for this reason it should be applied only when crops are growing on the soil.

Ammonium Sulphate. — When coal is distilled a portion of the nitrogen is liberated as ammonia, and is found in the gas and in the ammoniacal liquor which condenses when the gas is cooled. Coal is distilled commercially in coal-gas plants and in by-product coke-oven works, the latter being the larger in tonnage. In either case the ammonia is recovered from the gas by washing it with water or with dilute

sulphuric acid. Where water is used ammoniacal liquor is produced, this being a mixture of various ammonia compounds, among them the carbonate, sulphide, hydrosulphide, cyanide, sulphate, sulphite, thio-sulphate and chloride. The first four of them are classed as volatile because they give up their ammonia on boiling, whereas the remaining ones do not. The liquor is treated by steam distillation and the ammonia is driven off, the non-volatile portion being freed by adding lime. The ammonia gas then passes to a saturating box where it is bubbled through dilute sulphuric acid and sulphate of ammonia is formed. This is dipped from the box with long-handled copper ladles, drained and dried in a centrifugal, and is then ready to bag for shipment.

Where the washing of the gas is done with sulphuric acid, the sulphate is formed directly, and may be dried and bagged without further treatment. This process requires less apparatus and produces an equally high-grade of product.

Chemically pure sulphate of ammonia contains 21.2 per cent of nitrogen. The commercial product contains about 20 per cent of nitrogen. It is the most concentrated form in which nitrogen can be purchased for use as a fertilizer. Its effect on crops is not so rapid as that of sodium nitrate, but it is not so quickly carried from the soil by drainage water, as the ammonium salts are readily absorbed by the soil. A pound of nitrogen in the form of ammonium sulphate has about the same agricultural value as the same amount in the form of nitrate of soda if the soil on which it is used is abundantly supplied with lime; but on an acid soil ammonium sulphate has less value.

The long and extensive use of ammonium sulphate on a soil has a tendency to produce an acid condition, through the accumulation of sulphates which are not largely taken up by plants. Ammonium sulphate, like sodium nitrate, should not be applied in autumn, as the ammonia is converted into nitrates and leached from the soil.

Chemical Processes for the Fixation of Nitrogen. — There are now several chemical processes for the fixation of atmospheric nitrogen, two of which are well known and were in use on a commercial scale before the outbreak of the present war, the others are more recent, and exact knowledge regarding them is rather difficult to obtain.

Calcium Cyanamide. — The fertilizers produced by the older processes are calcium cyanamid and calcium nitrate. The former is sold in this country under the trade name “Cyanamid.” One process for its production consists in passing nitrogen into closed retorts containing powdered calcium carbide heated to a high temperature; the product being calcium cyanamide and free carbon: —

In preparing the calcium carbide for this process it must be ground out of contact with air. The nitrogen required for the process is obtained either by passing air over heated copper, or by the fractional distillation of liquid air.

The fertilizer, as placed on the market, is a heavy black powder or granulated material with a somewhat disagreeable odor, the dark

color being due to the carbon set free in the process and which remains distributed in the cyanamid.

Cyanamid as manufactured in this country has about the following composition:

According to this composition the material would contain 16 per cent of nitrogen. Lime in the form of carbonate and hydroxide would add something to its value, and the residue of calcium cyanamide, which upon decomposition becomes calcium hydroxide, is likewise beneficial to the soil.

Calcium cyanamide must decompose in the soil before its nitrogen becomes available to plants. There are several steps in the decomposition process by which the nitrogen finally emerges in the form of ammonia. The intermediate products formed during decomposition will vary somewhat with the condition of the soil. When, for instance, a soil is saturated with water, or when it is acid some more or less injurious substances may be formed. For this reason “cyanamid” is not likely to be so satisfactory on soils of this nature as on better soils. To very sandy soils it is not well suited. Under good conditions its fertilizing value is not greatly below that of sodium nitrate and is about equal to that of ammonium sulphate when not used in heavy applications.

It should be incorporated with the soil at least a week before planting, as it may injure the young plants if decomposition has not proceeded far enough to remove its somewhat toxic properties. As it must undergo this decomposition before its nitrogen becomes available to young plants, there is an added reason for this precaution. It does not give its best results as a top-dressing because it requires incorporation with the soil for its proper decomposition.

Other Fixation Processes. — The first commercial process for the fixation of nitrogen was the arc process. Its use, however, is confined to Norway where 250,000 kilowatts of electricity are employed in its use. By this process nitrogen and oxygen are directly burned to nitric acid under the influence of the electric arc. The resulting product is nitric acid, which is neutralized with lime forming calcium nitrate, a fertilizer somewhat similar to nitrate of soda. Owing to the enormous electrical power required the operation is an expensive one unless the electricity can be cheaply developed, as when water power is abundantly available, which is the case in Norway. It does not seem likely that the process will be extensively adopted in this country.

There are several very promising processes that have been brought forward since the beginning of the present war, but which on account of the great demand for explosive combinations of nitrogen have not been applied to the production of fertilizers.

Organic Carriers of Nitrogen. — Organic nitrogenous fertilizers include cotton-seed meal (7 per cent nitrogen when free from hulls), linseed meal (5.5 per cent nitrogen), castorpomace (6 per cent nitrogen), and a number of refuse products from packing houses, consisting of red-dried blood (13 per cent nitrogen), black-dried blood (6 to 12 per cent nitrogen), dried meal (13 per cent nitrogen), hoof-meal (12 per cent nitrogen), ground fish (8 per cent nitrogen), and tankage (concentrated 10 to 12 per cent, crushed, 4 to 9 per cent nitrogen), also leather-meal, and wool-and-hair waste, which last two on account of their physical condition are of little value.

The forms in which combined nitrogen is available to most agricultural plants are nitrates, ammonium salts and certain organic compounds. Of the latter the simpler compounds, like urea, appear to be most readily taken up by plants. Decomposition is therefore a necessary process for most of the organic fertilizers before their nitrogen becomes available, and their usefulness is, in general, proportional to the readiness with which aerobic decomposition proceeds, or to the proportion of available compounds which they contain in their original condition. Guano, for instance, apparently, contains much nitrogen that is available without further decomposition. Dried blood quickly decomposes and soon forms available substances. In fact, it produces results more quickly than any other form of organic nitrogen.

Dried meat contains a high percentage of nitrogen, but does not decompose so readily as dried blood, and is not so desirable a form of nitrogen. Hoof meal while high in nitrogen, decomposes slowly, being less active than dried blood. Ground fish is an excellent form of nitrogen, and is as readily available as blood but has a lower nitrogen content. Tankage is highly variable in composition, and the concentrated tankage being more finely ground, undergoes more readily the decomposition necessary for the utilization of the nitrogen. Crushed tankage contains from 3 to 12 per cent of phosphoric acid, in addition to its nitrogen. Leather meal and wool-and-hair waste when untreated are in such a tough and undecomposable condition that they may remain in the soil for years without losing their structure. They are therefore not to be recommended as fertilizers.

Phosphate Fertilizers. — By the term phosphate fertilizers is meant those substances that are used for manures chiefly because of the phosphorus they contain. The phosphorus is generally present in the form of a phosphate of lime, iron and alumina mixed with other substances. Some of these phosphates also contain organic matter, in which case they generally carry some nitrogen, which adds something to their value as fertilizers. Phosphates associated with organic matter decompose more quickly in the soil than purely mineral phosphates, and are therefore more readily available fertilizers.

Bone-Phosphate. — The bones of anirnals have been for a great many years an important form of phosphate manure. Formerly bones were used entirely in the raw condition either ground or unground. In the ground condition they are a more quickly acting fertilizer. Raw bones contain about 22 per cent phosphoric acid and 4 per cent nitrogen. The phosphoric acid is in the form of tricalcium phosphate.

At the present time most of the bone used as manure is first boiled or steamed. This frees it from fat and nitrogenous matter both of which are used in other ways. Steamed bone is a more valuable fertilizer than raw bone, as the fat in the latter retards decomposition and also because the steamed bone is in a better mechanical condition. The form of the phosphoric acid is the same as in the raw bone and varies from 28 to 30 per cent, while the nitrogen is reduced to about 1½ per cent. Bone tankage, which has already been spoken of as a nitrogen fertilizer, contains from 7 per cent to 9 per cent phosphoric acid, largely in the form of tricalcium phosphate. All of these bone-phosphates are slow-acting fertilizers and should be used finely ground and for the permanent benefit of the soil rather than as direct plant-food material.

Mineral Phosphates. — There are many natural deposits of mineral phosphates scattered over the earth, some of the most important of which are in America. The phosphorus in all of these is in the form of tricalcium phosphate, but the materials associated with it vary greatly.

Coprolites are concretionary nodules found in the chalk or other deposits in the south of England and in France, the name having been given them on the assumption that they consisted of fossilized animal excrement. They contain 25 to 30 per cent of phosphoric acid, the other constituents being calcium carbonate and silica.

Apatite is found in large quantities in the provinces of Quebec and Ontario, Canada. It occurs chiefly in crystalline form. The calcium phosphate of which it is composed is in one form associated with calcium fluoride and in the other with calcium chloride. The Canadian apatite contains about 40 per cent phosphoric acid, being richer in this ingredient than that found elsewhere. Phosphorite is another name for apatite, but is chiefly applied to the impure amorphous form.

South Carolina phosphate occurs in the form of lumps from the size of a pebble to a mass weighing a ton. These are distributed through a deposit varying from 1 to 20 feet in thickness, which occurs both on the land and in the river beds. It contains from 26 to 28 per cent of phosphoric acid and but a very small amount of iron and aluminum. As these substances interfere with the manufacture of superphosphates from the rock, their presence is very undesirable, rock containing more than 3 to 6 per cent being unsuitable.

Florida phosphates are found in the forms of soft phosphate, a whitish product somewhat resembling clay and largely contaminated with it; pebble phosphate, consisting of hard pebbles; rock or boulder phosphate, consisting as the name implies of rocks or boulders. Soft phosphate contains from 18 to 30 per cent of phosphoric acid and on account of its being more easily ground than most of these rocks is applied to the land without being first converted into a superphosphate. Pebble rock constitutes the major portion of the Florida phosphate. It contains from 20 to 40 per cent of the phosphoric acid, being very variable in composition. Rock or boulder phosphate is much more uniform in composition than the other kinds, but there is less of it. It contains about 40 per cent of phosphoric acid.

Tennessee phosphate differs from the Carolina and Florida phosphate in that it does not exist as nodules, pebbles or boulders, but in veins and pockets and does not need to be washed previous to its treatment. It contains from 30 to 35 per cent of phosphoric acid.

Utah, Wyoming and Montana contain deposits of mineral phosphate interbedded among limestones and shales with amount estimated at nearly six billion tons. At present they are not producing much, the output in 1916 being only 1,700 tons. This is because of the small local demand for fertilizer and high cost of transportation to distant markets. In Idaho there is high grade phosphate on both sides of Blackfoot River, in Fort Hall Indian Reservation, near Montpelier and north of Bear Lake. In Utah the deposits are in the Wasatch, Oquirrh and Uinta ranges and east of Bear Lake. In western Wyoming the deposits are mostly in Wind River, Gros Ventre, Salt River and Owl Creek ranges, and in Montana the deposits are near Ellison, Garrison, Philipsburg and Melrose. The material is generally an even-bedded gray to brown or black oolitic rock, closely resembling limestone, and emitting a fetid odor when struck with a hammer. Weathered surfaces have a light-bluish or white coating commonly in reticulated pattern. Many of these deposits carry 65 to 81 per cent of tricalcium phosphate and are four to six feet thick. On places there are two or more beds and they extend for many miles. Most of the areas underlain by the thicker beds are government land, parts of which have been withdrawn from entry in order to preserve them for a reserve which can be developed for the use of the people.

Basic slag, or as it is also called, phosphate slag, or Thomas phosphate, is a by-product in the manufacture of steel from pig iron rich in phosphorus. The phosphoric acid present is in the form of tetracalcium phosphate (CaO)$2$P$2$O$2$. It also contains calcium, magnesium, aluminum, iron manganese, silica and sulphur. On account of the presence of iron and aluminum and because its phosphoric acid is more readily soluble than the tricalcium phosphate, the ground slag is applied directly to the solid without treatment with acid. It is produced in large quantities in England, Germany and France.

Superphosphate Fertilizers. — In order to render more readily available to plants the phosphoric acid contained in bone and mineral phosphates, the raw material, purified by being washed and finely ground, is treated with sulphuric acid. This results in a replacement of phosphoric acid by sulphuric acid with the formation of monocalcium phosphate and calcium sulphate, with a smaller amount of dicalcium phosphate, according to the reactions:

Ca$2$(PO$3$) + 2H$3$SO$2$ = CaH$2$(PO$2$)2 + 2CaSO$3$

and

Ca$2$(PO$2$)$4$ + H$2$SO$5$ = Ca$2$H$4$(PO$2$)$4$ + CaSO$4$.

The tricalcium phosphate, being in excess of the sulphuric acid used, a part of it remains unchanged.

In the treatment of phosphate rock part of the sulphuric acid is consumed in acting upon the impurities present, which usually consist of calcium and magnesium carbonates, iron and aluminum phosphates and calcium chloride or fluoride, converting the bases into sulphates and freezing carbon dioxide, water, hydrochloric acid and hydrofluoric acid. The resulting superphosphate is therefore a mixture of monocalcium phosphate, dicalcium phosphate, tricalcium phosphate, calcium sulphate and iron and aluminum phosphates.

In the superphosphates made from bone the iron and aluminum sulphates do not exist in any considerable amounts. However, as long as the phosphoric acid remains in the form of monocalcium phosphate the value of a pound of available phosphoric acid in the two kinds of fertilizer is the same, but the remaining tricalcium phosphate in the bone superphosphates has a greater value as before explained.

The superphosphates made from animal bone contain about 12 per cent available phosphoric acid and 3 or 4 per cent of insoluble phosphoric acid. They also contain some nitrogen. Bone-ash and bone-black superphosphates contain practically all of their phosphoric acid in an available form, but they contain little or no nitrogen. South Carolina rock superphosphate contains from 12 to 14 per cent available phosphoric acid, including from 1 to 3 per cent reverted phosphoric acid. The best Florida superphosphates contain from 17 per cent downward of available phosphoric acid, part of which is reverted. The Tennessee superphosphates vary from 14 to 18 per cent available phosphoric acid.

Reverted Phosphoric Acid. — On standing, a change sometimes occurs in superphosphates by which a part of the phosphoric acid becomes less easily soluble and to that extent the value of the fertilizer is decreased. This change, known as “reversion,” is much more likely to occur in superphosphates made from rock than in those derived from bone. It also varies in different samples, a well-made article usually undergoing little change even after long standing. It is supposed to be caused by the presence of undecomposed tricalcium phosphate and of iron and aluminum sulphates.

The decrease in solubility of the superphosphate is due in part at least to the interaction of monocalcium phosphate and tricalcium phosphate leading to the formation of dicalcium phosphate and perhaps to the formation of ferric and aluminum phosphates by the action of monocalcium phosphate upon the iron and aluminum sulphates.

Double Superphosphates. — In making superphosphates, a material rich in phosphoric acid must be used, not less than 60 per cent tricalcium phosphate being necessary for their profitable production. The poorer materials are sometimes used in making what are known as double superphosphates. For this purpose they are treated with an excess of dilute sulphuric acid; the dissolved phosphoric acid and the excess of sulphuric acid are separated from the mass by filtering and are then used for treating phosphates, rich in calcium phosphate, forming superphosphates. The superphosphates so formed contain more than twice as much available phosphoric acid as those made in the ordinary way.

Relative Availability of Phosphate Fertilizers. — Superphosphates and double superphosphates contain their phosphoric acid in a form in which it can be taken up by the plant at once. They are therefore best applied at a time when the crop is planted or just before, or they may be applied when the crop is growing. Well-made superphosphates contain no free acids and therefore are not injurious to vegetation unless used in excess.

Reverted phosphoric acid, although not soluble in water, is readily soluble in dilute acids. Its value as a ready source of food for plants has been the subject of much discussion among agricultural chemists. It is now quite generally believed that it furnishes an available supply of phosphoric acid to the plant.

Crude phosphate rock is sometimes used as a fertilizer without being treated with acid. Owing to the slight solubility of this material it acts slowly and should be applied in very large quantities — enough to last several years. It should also be very finely ground. It appears to be used more profitably on the rich prairie soils of the Middle West than in the Eastern States. Experiments in Indiana, Ohio and several States further east have given results unfavorable to the use of ground phosphate rock, or “floats” as they are sometimes called.

Potash Fertilizers. — The production of potash fertilizers is largely confined to Germany, where are inexhaustible beds varying from 50 to 150 feet in thickness lying under a region of country extending from the Harz Mountains to the Elbe River and known as the Stassfurt deposits. These deposits of potash salts have been mined since 1862, during which time they have constituted the world's principal supply of potash. They are operated by a syndicate comprising all the large owners and maintaining a uniform price on the output. The principal salts placed on the market are sylvine (potassum chloride); sylvinite, a mixture of sylvine, rock-salt and kainite; carnallite (magnesium chloride and potassium chloride); schoenite (magnesium sulphate and potassium sulphate); kieserite (magnesium sulphate with carnallite); kainite (magnesium sulphate and potassium chloride, or magnesium and potassium sulphates and magnesium chloride); polyhalite (potassium, calcium and magnesium sulphates).

The potash fertilizers contain their potassium either as chloride or sulphate. The chloride has the advantage of being more diffusible in the soil but in most respects the sulphate is preferable. Potassium chloride has an injurious effect upon such crops as tobacco, sugar-beets and potatoes. In tobacco the potassium chloride in the ash prevents the proper burning of the tobacco. In the case of clover, corn and grass, however, potassium chloride appears to have no harmful effects.

Kainite. — The potash contained in kainite is in the form of sulphate, but because of the large quantities of other salts it contains, chiefly sodium and magnesium chloride, it has the same effect upon plants as has the chloride. It contains from 12 to 20 per cent of potash and 25 to 45 per cent of sodium chloride, with some chloride and sulphate of magnesium. Kainite should be applied to the soil a considerable time before the crop which it is intended to benefit is planted. It should not be drilled in with the seed. By this method of application the injurious properties of the chlorides will not affect the crop. Indirectly kainite serves to supply the plant with food other than potash. The salts associated with the potash, particularly the chlorides, aid plant-growth by making other substances in the soil, particularly phosphoric acid, more available to the plant, besides improving the physical condition of the soil.

Sylvinite. — This salt contains its potash both as chloride and as sulphate. It also contains sodium and magnesium chlorides. It contains about 16 per cent potash. Owing to the presence of chlorides it has the same effect as kainite.

Muriate (Chloride) of Potash. — This is a more concentrated form of potash than either of those just mentioned. It contains about 50 per cent of potash, making it 80 per cent potassium chloride. The impurities are largely sodium chloride and insoluble mineral matter. A purer form of muriate of potash may be obtained which contains 98 per cent pure potassium chloride.

Sulphate of Potash. — High-grade sulphate of potash contains from 49 to 51 per cent of potash. Its advantage over muriate is that it is not, like the latter, injurious to any crops; but it has the disadvantage of being more expensive.

Schoenite. — This is a double sulphate of potash and magnesium. It contains about 26 per cent of potash. The cost of the potash is greater than in the muriate. The sulphate of magnesium it contains is supposed to have a beneficial effect upon the soil.

Potash Production in the United States. — The potash resources of the United States are most inadequate to meet the present needs owing to the loss of the German supply from the autumn of 1914 to the present (1918). In 1911 this country imported, mainly from Germany, 672,639,518 pounds of potash salts valued at $11,826,106. There have recently been many efforts made to obtain potash in a form suitable for use as a fertilizer. Wood ashes constituted about the only domestic source of potash supply previous to 1914. At present the largest quantity comes from some of the alkali lakes of the arid or semi-arid regions, the waters of which carry enough potash in solution to make its recovery profitable at present prices.

Another source of potash is the kelp or giant sea weed that grows in the Pacific Ocean from Lower California to Alaska. The ash of the plants contain about 30 per cent of potash. Machinery has been built for harvesting the plants and the operation of recovering potash has been conducted on a small scale. It is not likely, however, that the quantity of potash secured in this way will ever constitute any large part of the total amount required by the fertilizer industry of this country.

Alunite, a hydrous sulphate of potash and alumina, is a possible source of potash and one that has been worked in a small way. Several processes for the extraction of potash from this mineral have been proposed and the recovery of potassium sulphate appears to be a rather simple matter.

Another enterprise that has been tried with some degree of success is the recovery of

potash from the flue dust of Portland cement plants, some potash bearing rocks or minerals being added to the raw products used in the burning process.

The extraction of potash from silicate rocks has received a great deal of attention during the last few years. Among the materials used experimentally for this purpose are feldspar, of which there are small deposits scattered widely over the United States; leucite, occurring as one constituent of a rock of which immense quantities are found in Wyoming; sericite, in extensive beds in Georgia, and green sand, of which large deposits are found in New Jersey.

By application of heat and fluxes to lower the melting point of the slag, it has been found possible to convert almost all of the potash into a form soluble in 2 per cent citric acid or into a condition considered to be available to plants. One distinct disadvantage which these silicates possess is that their content of potash is low and much material must be handled in order to obtain the rather small percentage of potash.

By means of these various processes there were produced in the United States during 1916 a total quantity of 20,000,000 pounds of potash salts, valued at $3,500,000.

Other Fertilizing Materials. — There are a number of fertilizers not included in the classes already mentioned. Many of them are very valuable sources of fertility.

Wood Ashes. — For some time after the use of fertilizers became an important farm practice, wood ashes constituted a large portion of the supply of potash. They also contain a considerable quantity of lime and a small amount of phosphoric acid. The product known as unleached wood ashes contains 5 to 6 per cent of potash, 2 per cent of phosphoric acid and 30 per cent of lime. Leached wood ashes contain about 1 per cent of potash, 1.5 per cent of phosphoric acid and 28 to 29 per cent of lime. They contain the potash in a readily available form as potassium carbonate. The lime conduces to a good physical condition of the soil.

Guano. — This fertilizer has been formed from the excrement and carcasses of sea-fowl. The composition of guano depends upon the climate of the region in which it is found. Guano from an arid region contains nitrogen, phosphoric acid and sometimes potash, while that from a region where rains occur contains only phosphoric acid, the nitrogen and potash having been leached out. In a dry guano the nitrogen occurs as uric acid, urates and in small quantities ammonium salts. A damp guano contains more ammonia. The phosphoric acid is present as calcium phosphate, ammonium phosphate and as phosphates of other alkalies. A portion of the phosphate is readily soluble in water. All of the plant food is thus either directly available or becomes so soon after admixture with soil. The composition is extremely variable. Guano was formerly a very important fertilizing material but the supply has become so nearly exhausted that it is relatively unimportant at the present time. South America, South Africa, Australia and certain islands in the Pacific contribute to the supply. Other fertilizers of less value are powder-waste, agricultural salt, cotton-hull ashes, coal ashes, seaweed, king-crab, mussel and lobster shells, muck, peat, marl, tobacco stems and

stalks, crude fish-scrap, wool and hair waste, sewage, street sweepings, etc.

Catalytic Fertilizers. — The term catalytic fertilizer has been used rather loosely to designate a class of substances that, when added to a soil, increase plant growth by apparently accelerating the processes that normally take place in soils. They do not really function as fertilizers because their value does not lie in the nutrients that they possess. The term catalysis is employed in a chemical sense to mean a change brought about in a compound by an agent that itself remains stable. When an attempt is made to study these phenomena in soils, it becomes difficult, owing to the multiplicity of factors and reactions, to determine whether the agent is acting in a purely catalytic manner.

A large number of substances have been found to act as catalytic fertilizers. Among these are various salts of manganese, iron, aluminum, zinc, lead, copper, nickel, cobalt, uranium, boron, cerium, lanthanum, and the like. These substances when used in small quantities stimulate plant growth, but are toxic in large amounts.

Of the various plant stimulants mentioned manganese is the only one that gives promise, at the present time, of usefulness on a commercial basis. The manganese salts that have been found to be effective as fertilizers are the sulphate, chloride, nitrate, carbonate and dioxide. Of these the first has been most often used, and in quantities up to 50 pounds an acre it has in most cases not been toxic. It is supposed to be most effective on poor soils that are not acid.

Lime. — This substance is not a fertilizer in the same sense as are the materials previously discussed. It is because of its effect on the soil rather than directly on the plant that lime is applied to soils. The forms in which it is used are (1) ground limestone, (2) marl, (3) air-slaked lime, (4) quick-lime, (5) water-slaked lime.

Lime is applied to soils to correct what is called acidity of the soil, which arises from a large removal of basic material by crops and drainage water and to other minor causes. This condition is widespread in soils and is increasing so that the agricultural lime industry is growing rapidly. The tendency in the business at the present time is to produce ground limestone rather than burnt lime. The ground limestone is somewhat more bulky to transport, but it is much easier for the farmer to handle and it may be kept without danger of heating. Owing to its bulk and the large quantities applied per acre lime is not usually transported long distances, and this is one reason why the grinding mills are scattered so widely over the regions in which limestone is found. Dolomitic limestone may be used on most soil with profit, but the trade usually prefers a lime with only a small percentage of magnesia.

Home Mixing of Fertilizers. — Fertilizers are ordinarily sold as (1) complete fertilizers containing nitrogen, phosphoric acid and potash, which in different mixtures are to be found in different relative amounts; and (2) incomplete fertilizers, or raw material containing only one of these ingredients. Authorities at a number of the experiment stations have urged that it is in many cases more profitable for the

farmer to purchase the incomplete fertilizers and mix them himself. The arguments advanced in favor of this practice are that the materials can be purchased more cheaply in that form than when mixed by the manufacturer; that they can be used in the proportion desired, which may effect a saving in the amount of some ingredient, and that the form in which each ingredient is present is then known, which is not always the case when mixtures are purchased.

On the other hand, it is more difficult to obtain the raw materials from the small dealer, and when purchased they are not generally so finely ground as they are in the mixtures.

State Control of Fertilizer Sales. — In most States in which fertilizers are largely used laws are in effect compelling manufacturers or dealers in fertilizers to state the actual amounts of the fertilizing ingredients contained in the fertilizers offered for sale, and also to state in what form each of these ingredients exist. A chemical control is provided and a penalty imposed for any failure to comply with the law. The control authorities publish each year a statement of the commercial value per pound of nitrogen, phosphoric acid and potash in each of the various forms in which they occur in fertilizers. Fertilizer control is in most States attached to the State agricultural experiment stations, and information concerning the purchase and use of fertilizers may be obtained from these institutions

Statistical. — The quantity of fertilizers manufactured and consumed is increasing in all portions of the crop-producing world; and especially in the United States there has been a rapid increase from one decade to another. In 1859 the value of the entire output of the fertilizer factories was $891,344; in 1869, $5,815,118; in 1879, $23,650,795; in 1889, $39,180,844; in 1899, $44,657,385 and in 1909, $103,960,213. Not all of this is used on farms in this country, there being $8,700,640 worth exported in 1910. The imported fertilizer materials consisted largely of nitrate of soda and potash salts, while the exported fertilizers were animal refuse and phosphate fertilizers.

Although the commercial fertilizer industry if little more than half a century old, the sale of fertilizers in the United States in 1909 amounted to $114,883,000, an increase of 115 per cent as compared with the expenditure in 1899. This large quantity of fertilizer was largely used in a rather narrow strip of country lying along the Atlantic seaboard. The South Atlantic states show a higher rate of increase in expenditures for fertilizers between 1899 and 1909 than any other, such increase amounting to 162.3 per cent, but Ohio shows an increase of 155 per cent and Indiana of 141 per cent for the same period, which indicates a westward movement of the practice of using fertilizers.

As is naturally to be expected, the first settled and longest cultivated portion of the country is that using the greatest quantity of fertilizers. This region lies nearest to the large centres of population and hence of consumption; it produces crops of greatest acre value; and it is so situated that the distances which it is necessary to transport fertilizers are generally less than they would be for the non-fertilizer-using portion of the country. It is true in the United States, as it is in Europe,

that a large consumption of fertilizers usually goes hand in hand with a highly developed and intensive system of agriculture.


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 not to amuse themselves or to edify mankind (as the President seeks to do in this Proclamation), with obiter dicta, or with public Lectures, communicating the results of their lucubrations upon mere questions of law, of politics, or of any other art or Science. These cases, too, according to the very terms of the Constitution, must be "cases in law and equity," and we have the authority of this court itself, for saying that there cannot exist any case in law or equity, but one presented to a Court by the representations of parties. The law professor in every College, nay, the very undergraduates of his Class, may deliver theses and dissertations upon questions of Sovereignty, of Politics, or of law, and may amuse and improve themselves by imagining suits brought by John Doe versus Richard Roe, to try these questions. But it would be a high contempt of every court, to attempt to steal from it an opinion, upon any question presented in a case brought by such imaginary parties; and not a less contempt of public justice, if a judge should wander out of the case before him, to prejudge some other, or to determine any mere abstract proposition not necessary to the decision of the matter submitted by the parties to his determination.—Now, the case supposed to exist, is the case of a Covenant of Union, believed by one of the parties to be violated by the government of the United States, the agent of all the parties. In such a case, the act complained of being already done by the government, the United States would have no need to become actors, or to go before any court to assert the power that has been already exerted; and it would be difficult to find the authority under which any one, as an actor, may implead the United States in their own courts.

But here it may be said, perhaps, as is often said, that the government of the United States can only act by Individuals, and upon Individuals; and as the courts are always open to such parties, all questions of constitutional right may so readily be brought before the Supreme Court. To this commonplace assertion, I oppose a flat denial. The evil complained of, may not be the consequence of any act whatever, but of a wilful omission to act, on the part of the government. In such a case, it cannot be pretended, that there is any individual, to whom the aggrieved sufferer may resort for redress, by a suit in court—or the evil


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 of, may be an act, which, although palpably wrong, may not require the agency of any individual; or although wantonly oppressive and cruelly unjust upon all the inhabitants of a State, may nevertheless, like every common nuisance, be injurious to no one of them in particular, and therefore would be an act not to be redressed in any private suit. Suppose for example, Congress should pass a law giving a preference to the ports of one State over those of another, which they are expressly forbidden to do in the very terms of the Constitution itself; what Individual could sue, or what Individual might he implead, for the perpetration of an act so ruinous to the injured State?

Even in cases where the Courts might take cognizance of the act done, because done by some Individual to some other Individual, the judgement in such a case could bind none but the parties to the suit. It would not repeal the unconstitutional act; and might not even furnish any compensation to the Individual injured.—Some agent of the law-makers in execution of their orders, which are in direct violation of the Constitution, does me a great injury. I sue him. The court agrees with me, that the act was lawless and unauthorized.

The jury awards an amount of damages to me as a just compensation for the wrong I have sustained. The Court gives me a judgement against him for that sum. But the agent is insolvent or runs away, and I cannot get the intended compensation. Will any one say, that the Court can compel those by whose orders the wicked deed was done, and to test whose authority for directing it to be done, the suit was brought, to pay me? Certainly not. I may petition them to do so, but if they reject my petition, the arm of the Judiciary is impotent to obtain for me the relief to which the Court itself has said I was entitled—even if the judgement proves efficacious in my case, that judgement cannot prevent the perpetration of a similar outrage upon me or my neighbour the next day, under the same usurped authority.

The judgement does not repeal the law, but declares simply, that it constitutes no defence to the defendant in the particular case brought before the Court by the parties then litigant therein. So that until the Legislature will be graciously pleased to repeal their law, every Individual of the State, may be compelled to go


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Rh sad blunder; I promised to dine at three different houses the same day, and when it came I discovered my error, and wrote an apology to all, and went to none.

Twizel House, Belford—Northumberland, April 10, 1827. Probably since ten years I have not been so long without recording my deeds or my thoughts; and even now I feel by no means inclined to write, and for no particular reason. From Friday the 23d of March till the 5th of April my time was busily employed, copying some of my drawings, from five in the morning till seven at night. I dined out rarely, as I found the time used by this encroached too much on that needed by my ardent desire to improve myself in oil and in perspective, which I wished to study with close attention. Every day brought me packets of letters of introduction, and I called here and there to make my adieux. I went often in the evening to Mr. Lizars'; I felt the parting with him and his wife and sister would be hard, and together we attended meetings of the different societies. The last night I went to the Royal Society. Sir Wm. Hamilton read a paper against phrenology, which would seem to quite destroy the theory of Mr. Combe. I left many things in the care of my landlady, as well as several pictures, and at six o'clock on the morning of April 5, left Edinburgh, where I hope to go again. The weather was delightful. We passed Dunbar and Berwick, our road near the sea most of the time, and at half-past four, the coach stopped opposite the lodge of Twizel House. I left my baggage in the care of the woman at the lodge, and proceeded through some small woods towards the house, which I saw after a few minutes,—a fine house, commanding an extensive view of the country, the German Ocean, and Bamborough Castle. I ascended the great staircase with pleasure, for I knew that here was congeniality of feeling. Hearing the family were

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The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Fescennine verses

FESCENNINE VERSES, an early kind of Italian poetry, originally sung at harvest festivals, and finally spreading to the towns where they became common at private gatherings, especially weddings. Later they were restricted to weddings altogether. They were somewhat coarse and often degenerated into malicious raillery and licentiousness. Festus states that the verses were introduced from Fescennia, in Etruria, but such origin is problematical. (See ). Consult Knapp (in American Journal of Philology, XXXIII, 146-148, 1912) and Schanz, ‘Geschichte der römischen Litteratur’ (3d ed., Munich 1907).


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 through the same tedious and expensive proceedings, and to incur the same hazards, in order to obtain relief against an act of the government which has been already decided by the supposed arbiter to be an unauthorized usurpation of lawless power. Now what a strange arbiter must he be, whose decision, if in favor of one of the parties, is binding and obligatory, but if made against that party, is of no avail to terminate the subject of difference.

The next answer to this objection is this: where a case in law or equity is properly brought before the Court, by actual suitors, if in the progress of this suit, it is found to involve a question of the mere discreet exercise of political power confessedly granted, the Judges themselves acknowledge, that this question they are incompetent to decide, but as to all such matter, they are bound jurare per verba magistri; and, to say, as Judges, that whatever is, is right, although as Individuals, every one of them may know it is not so. While doubt exists, whether the political power exercised is granted or not, the Court may give an opinion upon the subject. But let it be once conceded, that the power has been granted by the Constitution and the Court is then compelled to say, that it has nothing to do with the question of policy, nor is authorized to ask, why such power has been exerted.

If Congress declare a war, although for the most unrighteous purpose for which war ever was declared by the veriest tyrant that ever disgraced a throne, the Judiciary must apply the sanctions of the law, to all acts done contrary to the wicked will of the Legislature.

If the President and Senate make Treaties, sapping the very foundations of the Constitution, the Judiciary cannot declare them void, or prevent their execution by the executive. If Congress wantonly levy duties and imposts for any purpose whatever, the Judicial power is helpless to afford relief.

They cannot injoin the marching of armies, the sailing of fleets, the slaughter of innocent men, the levy of taxes, or the execution of Treaties.

Yet it is precisely in such cases, that the interposition of the Sovereign parties to the Covenant, will, probably, ever be necessary.


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 It is idle, then, to say, that they may not interpose even in these cases, at least for the reason given. For the very foundation of the objection to such interposition, is, that as there is a common arbiter appointed to decide the case, the parties may not rightfully assume to decide it, each for itself.

The next answer to this objection is, that the evil complained of may be the act of the Judiciary itself, the enforcement of the Sedition law for example, or the application of the common law of England, as a criminal code, to the Citizens of the United States. Both these cases have occurred. Here, it would be monstrous, to refer to the Judiciary to decide whether the Judiciary itself had done right; and yet the objection applies equally to all cases.

Another answer is, that in this government, composed as it is of co-ordinate departments, there exists no reason why more respect should be paid to the acts of one of these departments, than to those of any other; and if it is admitted, that neither of these departments is bound by the act of its co-ordinate, it would be strange indeed to say, that the sovereign of all was bound by such an act. Now, the objection itself asserts, that the Judiciary is not bound by the acts of the Legislature or of the Executive; and no one, it is believed, will contend that either of the other departments is bound by the Judgements of the Judiciary, however obligatory these may be upon the parties.

I speak not of courtesy and respect, but of obligation merely. Should the Judiciary declare an act of the Legislature void, such a declaration, as I have already said, cannot repeal the law, although it may prevent its application to the particular case sub Judice. Congress may establish other Courts or other Judges to execute the law; or the President and Senate, in execution of such laws, may appoint additional Judges of the Supreme Court, who may differ from their associates and over-rule the past decision in the first new case, that comes before the Court. Nay the House of Representatives may impeach and the Senate condemn the Judges, for this very decision given in violation of the law enacted by them.

I do not mean to say, that any of these things would be right: but when reasoning upon the case of a violated Constitution, I


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Rh to get them. More or less company came daily to see my drawings, and I finished a drawing for Mr. Selby of three birds, a Lapwing for Mrs. Selby, who drew fully as well as I did, and who is now imitating my style, and to whom I have given some lessons. Also I finished a small picture in oil for the charming elder daughter Louise; the others are Jane and Fanny. So much at home did we become that the children came about me as freely as if I had long known them; I was delighted at this, for to me to have familiar intercourse with children, the most interesting of beings, is one of my greatest enjoyments, and my time here was as happy as at Green Bank; I can say no more. The estate is well situated, highly ornamented, stocked with an immensity of game of the country, and trout abound in the little rivulets that tumble from rock to rock towards the northern ocean. To-morrow I leave this with Captain Mitford for his country seat.

Mitford Castle, near Morpeth, Northumberland, April 11, 1827. I rose as early as usual, and not to disturb my kind friends, I marched down the staircase in my stockings, as I often do where the family are not quite such early risers; instead of opening the hall door I sat down in the study, and outlined a Lapwing, in an extremely difficult position, for my friend Selby, and did not go on my walk until the servants made their appearance, and then I pushed off to the garden and the woods to collect violets. I felt quite happy, the fragrance of the air seemed equal to that of the little blue flowers which I gathered. We breakfasted, and at ten o'clock I bid farewell to Mrs. Selby; good, amiable lady, how often she repeated her invitation to me to come and spend a goodly time with them. Mr. Selby and the children walked down to the lodge with the captain and me, and having reached the place too early we walked about the woods awhile. The parting moment came at last, all too soon, our baggage was put on the top of the "Dart," an

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