128 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



that is a thing to which we can apply the law so well laid down 

 by Prof. Chadbourne, — and somehow or other he seems to dig 

 up about all the facts and laws that we can find : he hits the 

 nail on the head every time, and that is a good thing to do. 

 Now, bearing in mind the facts which I have stated, how 

 admirably we may apply the law as laid down by him, that 

 every man should study the process of fertilization on his own 

 farm, and learn there what is best to be done ! I have nothing 

 to say of commercial fertilizers or superphosphates, because I 

 have long since got weary of using them. I am told that there 

 is fifteen per cent, of water in one, twenty-five per cent, in 

 another, thirty per cent, in another, and so on. Well, I learned 

 long since to respect water, for it seems to me to lie at the 

 foundation of the whole animal, vegetable and mineral economy. 

 You take these dry bones that have been so long idle, doing 

 nothing, and how large a proportion of water do you suppose 

 they contain, when you undertake to apply the test to them ? 

 Eighty-five per cent, of water in every man's brains — the best 

 of them — a little more in some. Every particle of roast beef 

 we eat — how large a percentage of water do you suppose we 

 consume ? So I have long since abandoned the attempt to find 

 out the value of these fertilizers upon the water theory, and I 

 use them just exactly as I use any substitute for the best thing 

 I can find, and always try to get that which is the most reliable 

 in the market. I know perfectly well, for instance, that ground 

 bones, — I do not mean bones ground to powder ; I do not think 

 they are good for much, I may be mistaken, I am ready to 

 learn on that point, — but bones crushed coarsely, and properly 

 treated with ashes, as Dr. Durfee described this morning, make 

 a useful manure. I have an impression that if the bones are 

 ground to an almost impalpable powder, they do not act upon 

 the soil to so good an advantage as bones that are more coarsely 

 ground. I am not sure that the rains do not wash the powder 

 away. It will not stay until the soil can get hold of it. Gen- 

 tlemen are apt to forget that great chemical laboratory which 

 Nature has established in the soil itself. I think that this 

 impalpable powder gets out of the way before the soil can get 

 hold of it, and therefore I think that ground bone is a better 

 and more reliable thing, and, combined with ashes, I have no 

 doubt it makes a very useful fertilizer. I think Peruvian guano 



