MANURES. 61 



Rnd covered with loose boards. Most insurance policies are 

 forfeited by keeping ashes in wooden vessels. 



Bones are the very cream of manures. Our best crops are all 

 the time going into bones. Some way should be contrived to 

 get it back. There are large manufactories where bone dust is 

 prepared, but the best part of the bone is boiled out, and the 

 remainder is adulterated with shells, lime, plaster, marl, sand, 

 etc., and sold for sixty dollars per ton. Never buy any of this 

 stuff. Put a molasses hogshead in your back yard, cover the 

 bottom with peat, muck, or mellow soil, cover this again with 

 ashes four or five inches deep, into this throw all bones from 

 the kitchen, and all that you can hire the small boys to collect 

 for you at ten or fifteen cents a bushel. All the large bonea 

 should be broken before they are put in. When there are eight 

 or ten inches of bones, cover them with ashes, then soil, or 

 muck, then a thin spreading of plaster. Let this mass be wet 

 with soap suds occasionally. The alkali of the ashes dissolves 

 the bones, and the muck and plaster absorb the gases. Contract 

 at the slaughter house for the skulls and other bones, and 

 furnish a sugar hogshead to receive them. 



When there is a large quantity they must be crushed by 

 machinery, an ordinary grain mill with horses will grind one 

 thousand pounds per hour. The ground bone of commerce sells 

 for three dollars per Imndred, and the bones a farmer would 

 collect and grind would be worth twice as much. One hundred 

 pounds of bones contain enough phosphate of lime for twelve 

 thousand pounds of hay. The finer they are ground, and the 

 more thoroughly they are mingled with the soil, the better. 



Some farmers can secure spent tan bark near home, and at 

 little expense. It should never be used on light or porous soils. 

 The true way to use it is as a litter. It should be put under 

 cover until dry and then spread in the stables, or the pig pen. 



