XX. 



BONES PHOSPHATES GTJANO. 



I HATE to check improvement or chill the glow of 

 Faith ; yet I do so keenly apprehend that many of 

 our people, especially among the Southern cotton- 

 growers, are squandering money on Commercial Fer- 

 tilizers, that I am bound to utter my note of warning, 

 even though it should pass wholly unheeded. Let me 

 make my position as clear as I can. 



I live in a section which has been cultivated for 

 more than two centuries, while its proximity to a 

 great city has tempted to crop it incessantly, ex- 

 haustively. "Wheat while its original surface soil of 

 six to twelve inches of vegetable mold (mainly com- 

 posed of decayed forest-leaves) remained ; then Corn 

 and Oats ; at length, Milk, Beef, and Apples have 

 exhausted the hill-sides and gentler slopes of West- 

 chester County, except where they have been kept in 

 heart by judicious culture and liberal fertilizing ; 

 and, even here, that subtle element, Phosphorus, 

 which enters minutely but necessarily into the com- 

 position of every animal and nearly every vegetable 

 structure, has been gradually drawn away in Grain, 



