FERTILITY OF ANCIENT BATTLE-FIELDS. 4> 



HI smaller quantity, every year that passes, yet still in such abun- 

 dance as to contribute sensibly to the nourishment, and in some de- 

 gree to promote the growth of the crops which the land is made to. 

 bear.* So it would be with the horns and hoofs of cattle, if laid on in 

 equal quantity, for they also decay with exceeding slowness. 



Still the inorganic part is not without its use. If the soil be defici- 

 ent in phosphates or in lime, the earthy matter of the bones will sup- 

 ply these substances. 1 only wish to guard you against the conclu- 

 sion, that because bones often act for so long a period, that therefore 

 the organic matter can have no share in the influence they exercise 

 after a limited period of years. 



He who candidly weighs the considerations above presented will, I 

 think, conclude that the whole effect of bones cannot in any case be 

 ascribed exclusively either to the one or to the other of their principal 

 constituents. He will believe, indeed, that in the turnip husbandry the 

 organic part performs the most prominent and most immediately useful 

 office, but that the earthy part, nevertheless, affords a ready supply ot 

 certain organic kinds of food, which in many soils the plants would 

 not otherwise easily obtain. He will assign to each constituent its 

 separate and important function, being constrained, at the same time, 

 o confess that while in very many cases the earthy part of hones ap- 

 plied alone would fail to benefit the land, there are few cullivated 

 fields in which the organic part applied alone would not materially 

 promote the growth of most of our artificial crops. 



§ 5. Of the application of hone-dust to pasture lands. 



If the soil be deficient in phosphate of lime, bone-earth alone, or the 

 mineral phosphate (Lee. IX., § 4,) may be advantageously applied to 

 increase its fertility. In a four-years' rotation of turnips, barley, clover, 

 and wheat, if bones be used for the turnip crop, the land will every ro- 

 tation become richer in bone-earth, (see preceding page,) and there- 

 fore the application of earthy phosphates cannot — after a few rota- 

 tions — be expected materially to affect its productiveness. But pas- 

 ture lands are treated differently, and it is not unlikely that in some 

 instances the earth of bones, even applied alone, may to such lands 

 be productive of considerable benefit. 



The application of bone-dust to permanent pasture has of late 

 years been practised with great success in Cheshire. Laid on at the 

 rate of 30 to 35 cwt., or at a cost of £10 per acre, it has increased 

 the value of old pastures from 10s. or 15s. to 30s. or 40s. per acre : 

 and after a lapse of 20 years, though sensibly becoming less valu - 

 able, land has remained still worth two or three times the rent it paid 

 before the bones were .aid on. 



It is this lengthened good effect of bone-dust that affords the strongest 

 ground for believing that the earthy phosphate has a large share in the 



* This opinion derives a singularly interestinst confirmation from the fact that a portion 

 of the soil of an arable district in Sweden, "which from time immemorial hail grown ex- 

 cellent wheat without manure," was found by Berzelius to contain minute fragments of 

 4.one capable ?:[u»n boiling with water of yielding a weak solution of jtelatine. It wag 

 concluded, therefore, that the spot had been an ancient battlefield, and that its prolonged 

 crtility was due to the bonea of old time buried in it, and still to some extent undecom* 

 >03cd (Marchand ) 



