Liebig's Chemical Letters

LETTER XIV

My dear Sir,
I treated, in my last letter, of the means of improving the condition of the soil for agricultural purposes by mechanical operations and mineral agents. I have now to speak of the uses and effects of animal exuviae, and vegetable matters or manures - properly so called.
In order to understand the nature of these, and the peculiarity of their influence upon our fields, it is highly important to keep in mind the source whence they are derived.
It is generally known, that if we deprive an animal of food, the weight of its body diminishes during every moment of its existence. If this abstinence is continued for some time, the diminution becomes apparent to the eye; all the fat of the body disappears, the muscles decrease in firmness and bulk, and, if the animal is allowed to die starved, scarcely anything but skin, tendon, and bones, remain. This emaciation which occurs in a body otherwise healthy, demonstrates to us, that during the life of an animal every part of its living substance is undergoing a perpetual change; all its component parts, assuming the form of lifeless compounds, are thrown off by the skin, lungs, and urinary system, altered more or less by the secretory organs. This change in the living body is intimately connected with the process of respiration; it is, in truth, occasioned by the oxygen of the atmosphere in breathing, which combines with all the various matters within the body. At every inspiration a quantity of oxygen passes into the blood in the lungs, and unites with its elements; but although the weight of the oxygen thus daily entering into the body amounts to 32 or more ounces, yet the weight of the body is not thereby increased. Exactly as much oxygen as is imbibed in inspiration passes off in expiration, in the form of carbonic acid and water; so that with every breath the amount of carbon and hydrogen in the body is diminished. But the emaciation - the loss of weight by starvation - does not simply depend upon the separation of the carbon and hydrogen; but all the other substances which are in combination with these elements in the living tissues pass off in the secretions. The nitrogen undergoes a change, and is thrown out of the system by the kidneys. Their secretion, the urine, contains not only a compound rich in nitrogen, namely urea, but the sulphur of the tissues in the form of a sulphate, all the soluble salts of the blood and animal fluids, common salt, the phosphates, soda and potash. The carbon and hydrogen of the blood, of the muscular fibre, and of all the animal tissues which can undergo change, return into the atmosphere. The nitrogen, and all the soluble inorganic elements are carried to the earth in the urine.
These changes take place in the healthy animal body during every moment of life; a waste and loss of substance proceeds continually; and if this loss is to be restored, and the original weight and substance repaired, an adequate supply of materials must be furnished, from whence the blood and wasted tissues may be regenerated. This supply is obtained from the food.
In an adult person in a normal or healthy condition, no sensible increase or decrease of weight occurs from day to day. In youth the weight of the body increases, whilst in old age it decreases. There can be no doubt that in the adult, the food has exactly replaced the loss of substance: it has supplied just so much carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and other elements, as have passed through the skin, lungs, and urinary organs. In youth the supply is greater than the waste. Part of the elements of the food remain to augment the bulk of the body. In old age the waste is greater than the supply, and the body diminishes. It is unquestionable, that, with the exception of a certain quantity of carbon and hydrogen, which are secreted through the skin and lungs, we obtain, in the solid and fluid excrements of man and animals, all the elements of their food.
We obtain daily, in the form of urea, all the nitrogen taken in the food both of the young and the adult; and further, in the urine, the whole amount of the alkalies, soluble phosphates and sulphates, contained in all the various aliments. In the solid excrements are found all those substances taken in the food which have undergone no alteration in the digestive organs, all indigestible matters, such as woody fibre, the green colouring matter of leaves ( chlorophyle), wax, &c.
Physiology teaches us, that the process of nutrition in animals, that is, their increase of bulk, or the restoration of wasted parts, proceeds from the blood. The purpose of digestion and assimilation is to convert the food into blood. In the stomach and intestines, therefore, all those substances in the food capable of conversion into blood are separated from its other constituents; in other words, during the passage of the food through the intestinal canal there is a constant absorption of its nitrogen, since only azotised substances are capable of conversion into blood; and therefore the solid excrements are destitute of that element, except only a small portion, in the constitution of that secretion which is formed to facilitate their passage. With the solid excrements, the phosphates of lime and magnesia, which were contained in the food and not assimilated, are carried off, these salts being insoluble in water, and therefore not entering the urine.
We may obtain a clear insight into the chemical constitution of the solid excrements without further investigation, by comparing the faeces of a dog with his food. We give that animal flesh and bones - substances rich in azotised matter - and we obtain, as the last product of its digestion, a perfectly white excrement, solid while moist, but becoming in dry air a powder. This is the phosphate of lime of the bones, with scarcely one per cent. of foreign organic matter.
Thus we see that in the solid and fluid excrements of man and animals, all the nitrogen - in short, all the constituent ingredients of the consumed food, soluble and insoluble, are returned; and as food is primarily derived from the fields, we possess in those excrements all the ingredients which we have taken from it in the form of seeds, roots, or herbs.
One part of the crops employed for fattening sheep and cattle is consumed by man as animal food; another part is taken directly - as flour, potatoes, green vegetables, &c.; a third portion consists of vegetable refuse, and straw employed as litter. None of the materials of the soil need be lost. We can, it is obvious, get back all its constituent parts which have been withdrawn therefrom, as fruits, grain and animals, in the fluid and solid excrements of man, and the bones, blood and skins of the slaughtered animals. It depends upon ourselves to collect carefully all these scattered elements, and to restore the disturbed equilibrium of composition in the soil. We can calculate exactly how much and which of the component parts of the soil we export in a sheep or an ox, in a quarter of barley, wheat or potatoes, and we can discover, from the known composition of the excrements of man and animals, how much we have to supply to restore what is lost to our fields.
If, however, we could procure from other sources the substances which give to the exuviae of man and animals their value in agriculture, we should not need the latter. It is quite indifferent for our purpose whether we supply the ammonia (the source of nitrogen) in the form of urine, or in that of a salt derived from coal-tar; whether we derive the phosphate of lime from bones, apatite, or fossil excrements (the coprolithes).
The principal problem for agriculture is, how to replace those substances which have been taken from the soil, and which cannot be furnished by the atmosphere. If the manure supplies an imperfect compensation for this loss, the fertility of a field or of a country decreases; if, on the contrary, more are given to the fields, their fertility increases.
An importation of urine, or of solid excrements, from a foreign country, is equivalent to an importation of grain and cattle. In a certain time, the elements of those substances assume the form of grain, or of fodder, then become flesh and bones, enter into the human body, and return again day by day to the form they originally possessed.
The only real loss of elements we are unable to prevent is of the phosphates, and these, in accordance with the customs of all modern nations, are deposited in the grave. For the rest, every part of that enormous quantity of food which a man consumes during his lifetime ( say in sixty or seventy years), which was derived from the fields, can be obtained and returned to them. We know with absolute certainty, that in the blood of a young or growing animal there remains a certain quantity of phosphate of lime and of the alkaline phosphates, to be stored up and to minister to the growth of the bones and general bulk of the body, and that, with the exception of this very small quantity, we receive back, in the solid and fluid excrements, all the salts and alkaline bases, all the phosphate of lime and magnesia, and consequently all the inorganic elements which the animal consumes in its food.
We can thus ascertain precisely the quantity, quality, and composition of animal excrements, without the trouble of analysing them. If we give a horse daily 4ù5 pounds' weight of oats, and 15 pounds of hay, and knowing that oats give 4 per cent. and hay 9 per cent. of ashes, we can calculate that the daily excrements of the horse will contain 21 ounces of inorganic matter which was drawn from the fields. By analysis we can determine the exact relative amount of silica, of phosphates, and of alkalies, contained in the ashes of the oats and of the hay.
You will now understand that the constituents of the solid parts of animal excrements, and therefore their qualities as manure, must vary with the nature of the creature's food. If we feed a cow upon beetroot, or potatoes, without hay, straw or grain, there will be no silica in her solid excrements, but there will be phosphate of lime and magnesia. Her fluid excrements will contain carbonate of potash and soda, together with compounds of the same bases with inorganic acids. In one word, we have, in the fluid excrements, all the soluble parts of the ashes of the consumed food; and in the solid excrements, all those parts of the ashes which are insoluble in water.
If the food, after burning, leaves behind ashes containing soluble alkaline phosphates, as is the case with bread, seeds of all kinds, and flesh, we obtain from the animal by which they are consumed a urine holding in solution these phosphates. If, however, the ashes of food contain no alkaline phosphates, but abound in insoluble earthy phosphates, as hay, carrots, and potatoes, the urine will be free from alkaline phosphates, but the earthy phosphates will be found in the faeces. The urine of man, of carnivorous and graminivorous animals, contains alkaline phosphates; that of herbivorous animals is free from these salts.
The analysis of the excrements of man, of the piscivorous birds (as the guano), of the horse, and of cattle, furnishes us with the precise knowledge of the salts they contain, and demonstrates, that in those excrements, we return to the fields the ashes of the plants which have served as food, - the soluble and insoluble salts and earths indispensable to the development of cultivated plants, and which must be furnished to them by a fertile soil.
There can be no doubt that, in supplying these excrements to the soil, we return to it those constituents which the crops have removed from it, and we renew its capability of nourishing new crops: in one word, we restore the disturbed equilibrium; and consequently, knowing that the elements of the food derived from the soil enter into the urine and solid excrements of the animals it nourishes, we can with the greatest facility determine the exact value of the different kinds of manure. Thus the excrements of pigs which we have fed with peas and potatoes are principally suited for manuring crops of potatoes and peas. In feeding a cow upon hay and turnips, we obtain a manure containing the inorganic elements of grasses and turnips, and which is therefore preferable for manuring turnips. The excrement of pigeons contains the mineral elements of grain; that of rabbits, the elements of herbs and kitchen vegetables. The fluid and solid excrements of man, however, contain the mineral elements of grain and seeds in the greatest quantity.