28 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



great advantage to the agricultural interests of the Commonwealth, 

 Dr. Dana condensed his notes into a pithy treatise, which was issued 

 in 1842 under the quaint title of " A Muck Manual for Farmers," — 

 a name indicative of the prominent idea of the work. Five editions 

 of this book have been published in this country, and it has been re- 

 printed in England. At the suggestion of Dr. Warren, he also wrote 

 an Essay on Manures, for which a prize was awarded by the Massa- 

 chusetts Society for promoting Agriculture. These labors awakened 

 in his own mind such an interest in the tillage of the soil, that he 

 bought a farm near Lowell for the purpose of testing his particular 

 views, and successfully directed its cultivation for many years. He 

 seems to have found no occasion to modify the propositions which he 

 laid down at first ; though he might have seen fit to add some limita- 

 tions to one or two of them, had he tried the unctuous bottom lands of 

 the Mississippi Valley as well as the light soils of Middlesex County. 



In point of time, originality, and ability, Dr. Dana stood first among 

 scientific writers on Agriculture in this country, and his works have 

 done great good. But the agricultural treatises by which he has be- 

 come so well and favorably known were but the secondary results of 

 his inquiry into the nature of cow-dung as related to calico-printing. 

 The primary object was pursued with signal success. He found that 

 the property of fixing mordants was owing, in a great measure, to the 

 presence of phosphates, and that the cumbrous and costly animal ex- 

 crement might be effectually replaced by cheap soluble phosphates pre- 

 pared from bones. As the discovery came to be rendered fully availa- 

 ble in the regular routine of work, the fifty cows which had been con- 

 stantly kept by the Merrimac Company were sold off, and a few bar- 

 rels of burnt bones were occasionally brought into the Works under a 

 name understood only by the initiated. Dr. Dana as an employee of 

 the Company was not allowed to secure a patent for the invention, and 

 thus received no personal benefit from it, though it has effected an im- 

 mense saving to others. But another person, with a full knowledge of 

 what had been done at the Merrimac Print Works, went to England 

 and sought to turn the discovery to account there ; and it was then 

 found that Mercer had at the same time been making similar trials. 

 In fact the English and the American chemist independently origi- 

 nated the use of dung substitutes. But probably to Mercer must be 

 conceded the priority of experiments by a few months, while Dana 

 was the first to make the substitution a complete success in actual prac- 



