408 transactions of the american institute. 



Raw Bone Fertilizer. 



The Chairman. — We have received a niiml:)er of letters making 

 enquiries touching the difierence between flour of bone and raw 

 bone superphosphate. These letters having been referred to Mr. 

 Todd, I now call upon him to report. 



Mr. S. Edwards Todd said: There is a great ditTcreuce in value 

 as a fertilizing material, between the flour of bone made of bones 

 that have been boiled several times for the purpose of driving out 

 as much of the oleaginous matter as possible, and the raw bone 

 superphosphate produced from bones that are reduced to powder 

 without extracting the oleaginous material. The raw bone super- 

 phosphate is made without subjecting the raw bones to any boil- 

 ing, baking, or calcining. The unbleached bones are first crushed 

 by powerful machinery, then treated with sulphuric acid, which 

 dissolves every fragment. These two articles — raw ground bones 

 and oil of vitriol — when mingled with pulverized guano, consti- 

 tute this commercial manure. When bones are boiled to death, 

 and ground into flour, their value as a fertilizer is greatU^ im- 

 paired. 



If there is any one practice among American farmers, for which 

 they deserve sharp rebuke, it is for permitting such immense 

 quantities of bones to be exported for the improvement of the 

 agiiculture of foreign nations. Thousands of tons of bones are 

 collected annually in Chicago, Buflfalo, New York, and other popu- 

 lous cities, and shipped to European countries to fertilize the land 

 for raising turnips, wheat, fat cattle and sheep. And yet Ameri- 

 can farmers, in stupid quietude, look on and say: "It don't pay 

 to collect bones and apply them to the soil." 



It will pay. They have not tested the application of ground 

 bone. There is not a meadow nor a pasture in the land — with 

 very few exceptions — that will not be greatly benefited by a dress- 

 ins: of irround raw bone. Thousands of acres of the best farming 

 land in New England are in a low state of impoverishment for the 

 want of a liberal dressing of raw ground bone. Such fertilizing 

 matter is the very life of the soil. European farmers understand 

 and appreciate this fact. They know it pays to ship bones from 

 America to enrich their farms. The value of every ship load of 

 bones that is picked from our land cannot readily be computed in 

 dollars and cents, to the agriculture of our country. England 

 delights in her own fiitness, produced on the choice cheese of 

 American dairies, while we mutter and grumble over a pot of the 



