Soapers' Ashes
These are occasionally used as manure for plants. They consist largely of carbonate of lime, mixed with sulphuret and sulphite of lime, and a small quantity of sand and other rubbish. While fresh, they injure plants, and ought therefore to be left exposed to the atmosphere for some time. If this is done, they absorb oxygen, and the sulphurets and sulphites become converted into the sulphate of lime, or gypsum; so that at last the effect, when they are employed as manure, is but little different from that which results from the use of the same quantity of a mixture of carbonate of lime (chalk) and sulphate of lime (gypsum). The value of Soapers' Ashes as manure is not great.