JOHN P. NORTON'S ADDRESS. 385 



are beginning to apply them, at the rate of about ten bushels 

 per acre, and with most remarkable effect. It is said, that, on 

 their old, worn-out soils, they can get, in some cases, as good 

 corn as when the land was first broken up. 



Phosphoric acid is never abundant in ordinary soils, and 

 is more speedily exhausted than other substances, because, on 

 many farms, the principal part of the grain, containing, as we 

 have seen, nearly all of the phosphoric acid, is sold off, and the 

 straw retained for manure. In this way, although a large bulk 

 of manure is annually applied, the phosphates in the soil may 

 be annually decreasing, and a special addition of them may, 

 after a time, become necessary. 



When farmers are once awakened to the benefits of employ- 

 ing bones for manure, there is still another step, which may 

 then be urged upon them. This is a new application of bones, 

 and is one of the greatest discoveries of modern chemistry, in 

 relation to agriculture. I refer to the dissolving of them in 

 sulphuric acid. But if I were to enter upon this, it would be 

 impossible to avoid using some more hard names. I should be 

 obliged to talk about sulphuric acid, and phosphoric acid in 

 connection with super-phosphate of lime, and fear that any who 

 may now have become interested in bones, would drop them 

 again in consternation, at the idea of encountering this new 

 array of chemicals. 



I may, however, venture to change my ground entirely, and 

 give you one more instance of scientific explanation, with the 

 hope that those who hear, may, in this case also, be inclined to 

 try some of the things recommended, even if they cannot com- 

 prehend all of my reasoning. 



You have, in this region, considerable tracts of light, sandy 

 soil. This is not formed from the original rock of the country, 

 but is composed of the debris of some other formation, in a 

 distant part of the world ; which formation, in the earlier his- 

 tory of our globe, must have been crumbled down by some 

 unknown agency, and its fine fragments swept hither by vast 

 currents of water, such as have left their traces, to this day, on 

 every part of the earth's surface. This drift formation, as it 

 is called by geologists, extends the whole distance to Long 



