BONES PHOSPHATES GUANO. 119 



in Milk, in Bones, and not restored to the soil by the 

 application of ordinary manures. I am convinced 

 that a field may be so manured as to give three tuns 

 of Hay per acre, yet so destitute of Phosphorus that 

 a sound, healthy animal cannot be grown therefrom. 

 For two centuries, the tillers of Westchester County 

 knew nothing of Chemistry or Phosphorus, and al- 

 lowed the unvalued bones of their animals to be ex- 

 ported to fatten British meadows, without an effort to 

 retain them. Hence, it has become absolutely essen- 

 tial that we buy and apply Phosphates, even though 

 the price be high; for our land can no longer do 

 without them. Wherever a steer or heifer can OCT 

 casionally be caught gnawing or mumbling over an 

 old bone, there Phosphates are indispensable, no 

 matter at what cost. Better pay $100 per tun for a 

 dressing of one hundred pounds of Bone per acre 

 than try to do without. 



But no lands recently brought into cultivation no 

 lands where the bones of the animals fed thereon 

 have been allowed, for unnumbered years past, to 

 mingle with the soil can be equally hungry for 

 Phosphates ; and I doubt that any cotton-field in the 

 South will ever return an outlay of even $50 per tun 

 for any Phosphatic fertilizer whatever. That any 

 preparation of Bone, or whereof Bone is a principal 

 element, will increase the succeeding crops, is un- 

 doubted ; but that it will ever return its cost and a 

 decent margin of profit, is yet to be demonstrated to 

 my satisfaction. 



