108 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



on still. Those deep-sea dredgings have shown that the bones 

 of the sea-cow, which are carried down the River Amazon in very 

 large quantities, are swept by the ocean currents into deep-sea 

 basins, and they accumulate there. In the bones of these ani- 

 mals and some others, the phosphates are abundant ; but you 

 will never get phosphates from a clam shell or oyster shell. 

 Those are carbonates of lime. If that was the source of those 

 deposits, it would be very easy to account for them ; but it is 

 not so. 



Mr. Buffinton. "We dig the muck out of the river here, where 

 we have a great many shell-fish, and we find it makes a very 

 good manure. 



Dr. Nichols. Oh, yes, sir ; that is nitrogenous. You get 

 nitrogen from those deposits. 



Dr. Durfee. About a year ago, my gardener took the pains 

 to dig up his grape border and put in a large quantity of oyster 

 shells. I would like to know what value there was in that 

 operation ; whether the doctor considers that that was of any 

 utility or any usefulness to the vine, in the production of 

 grapes ? If I understand his remarks on the subject of shells, 

 there is very little value in common oyster shells as a fertilizer. 



Dr. Nichols. I would say, in relation to that, that there may 

 be a slight advantage, a mechanical one, perhaps it might be 

 called, if it be any advantage to keep the soil porous. I think if 

 you should open your beds you would find that the little root- 

 lets had run in around the shells and twined about them. The 

 tendrils of vines love to twine about something ; they will twine 

 around stones in precisely the same way. But the amount of 

 decomposition that goes on would not afford any especial nutri- 

 ment. There would be no fertilizing influence of any account. 

 Perhaps in a great length of time there would be a little devel- 

 oped, but it would not be sufficient to pay for placing them 

 there. If there was any advantage, I should say it would be 

 mechanical. It used to be quite common to place bones in 

 grape borders, and inasmuch as the tendrils of the vines would 

 twine about the bones, the inference was that they were service- 

 able. But I have taken up bones from a grape border that had 

 been down twelve years, and I could not detect any loss that 

 was appreciable. 



