CHEMISTRY AND FARMING 309 



contain the requisite qiiantity. The stalk of your wheat may 

 be prodigious ; but to form the grain it calls upon the soil and 

 the guano for the phosphates — they are not afforded, and the 

 grain fails. How many instances are there in the experience of 

 the farmer when the produce of the see(J is sadly dispropor- 

 tioned to the yield of stalk, — a result he is fully unable to 

 explain. Your soil and manure being thus deficient in phos- 

 phate of lime, in what direction will you look for that agent 

 which will promptly restore to your plants their seed-bearing 

 capabilities ? 



The talismanic power lies in those bones which lie bleaching 

 and useless around your dwellings. Gather them up ; there is 

 gold locked up in those silvery, shining grains which constitutes 

 their mass. They are useless encumbrances where they are, 

 and they only need the most simple manipulation to induce 

 them to disgorge their hidden treasures. Every farmer is capa- 

 ble of collecting bones enough during each year to afford him 

 more than one hundred pounds of plant food, of as much value 

 as the richest guano. Next to ammonia, phosphoric acid,, in 

 combination with lime, is the most valuable constituent of ma- 

 nure. 



The bones, in order to lit them for application to the soil, 

 should be dissolved in sulphuric acid. For this purpose a 

 cheap wooden tank, or an excavation in the ground plastered 

 with cement, may be provided. The bones must be thrown in, 

 and the acid diluted with four parts of water turned upon 

 them, so that all the bones will be subjected to the action. 

 When dissolution is effected, the resultant powder or paste 

 should be blended with the compost heap in proper proportions. 

 It will constitute one of its most important ingredients, and 

 will aid most wonderfully, in conjunction with ammonia, in the 

 production of heavy crops of grain, and also root crops, such as 

 turnips, carrots, beets, <fec. 



I have said enough, I trust, to accomplish my object, which 

 has been to show the husbandman how intimately connected is 

 chemistry with his vocation ; how much he has learned from it, 

 and how much it is able to teach him. Aside from the pecu- 

 niary value of its teachings to the farmer, how delightful is the 

 study of that science which explains to him the phenomena of 

 the expanding leaf, the increase of vegetable fibre, the growth 



