BONES. 



BONES. 



The introduction of bones as a fertilizer is 

 perhaps one of the most important and suc- 

 cessful agricultural efforts of modern days 

 and has been certainly one great means of 

 sufficiently increasing the national production 

 of corn to keep pace with an annually enlarg- 

 ing population. It required, however, like all 

 other agricultural improvements, much perse- 

 verance and unshaken energy in the promoters 

 of this manure, to induce its general adoption; 

 many a long and stubborn argument had to 

 be answered ; many hundred loads of the bone 

 refuse of Sheffield and Birmingham had to be 

 given away, before the cautious and suspi- 

 cious Yorkshire farmers could be generally 

 persuaded of the fallacy of the assertion, that 

 " there is no good in bones." To this tardy 

 conviction the erroneous mode of employing 

 them originally adopted mainly contributed, for 

 they were at first used without even roughly 

 breaking them, and, in consequence, they de- 

 composed so very slowly in the soil that the 

 farmer's patience was naturally exhausted : he 

 sought in vain for immediate and striking re- 

 sults.* 



The introduction of machinery, however, by 

 enabling the cultivator to procure them in a 

 crushed state, did away with this objection, 

 for when crushed, they decompose with much 

 greater rapidity; and this has long since in- 

 duced a consumption of this manure more 

 than adequate to the national produce of 

 bones. It has been necessary, in consequence, 

 to search in other countries for a supply ; and 

 for the last fifteen years the quantity of bones 

 imported from abroad has been steadily in- 

 creasing. Thus the declared value of all the 

 bones imported into England 



t. d. 



In the year 1821 was - - 15,896 12 11 



_ 1824 43,940 17 11 



- 1827 - - 77,950 6 8 



1830 - - 58,223 16 8 



1833 97,900 6 4 



1835 127,131 14 10 



1836 171,808 



1837 - - 254,600 



Into the port of Hull alone, in 1815, were im- 

 ported about 8000 tons ; this had increased to 

 17,500 tons in 1833, and to 25,700 tons in 

 1835. These came principally from the Ne- 

 therlands, Denmark, and the Baltic, but they 

 have been imported from much more distant 

 places, such as Buenos Ayres and the Medi- 

 terranean ; and I am confident that if the seal 

 fishermen of North America and other distant 

 stations were aware of the fact that the bones 

 of fish are nearly, if not quite, as valuable for 

 the farmer as those of other animals, they 

 would not suffer any falling off in the supply. 

 By the 3 & 4 W. 4, c. 56, a duty of one pound 

 per cent, on the declared value is payable on 

 all bones imported for farming or other pur- 

 poses. 



The following table, extracted from one by 

 Richard Tottie, Esq., of Hull, will show to the 



* It is said, in the Doncaster Agricultural Society's 

 Report upon the use of bones, "Colonel St. Leger, then 

 residing at Warmsworth, was the first person who is 

 known to have used them, and his introduction of them 

 was in 1775; the early progress does not seem to have 

 been rapid, from the practice of laying them on almost 

 unbroken, and in very large quantities." 

 25 



farmer from whence the great supply of fo- 

 reign bones is derived. This table contains 

 the imports during 1827, in which year the 

 following number of vessels entered the port 

 of Hull loaded with bones : 



248 



17,718 



The import of bones into Hull has since been 

 regularly increasing: it was, according to a 

 letter with which Mr. Tottie favoured me, equal 

 to 23,900 tons in 1834, and to 25,700 in 1835. 

 It would certainly be well to look to other 

 quarters besides the Continent for a future 

 supply, since in some of the German states a 

 duty on their export has been recently im- 

 posed. So considerable, indeed, has the de- 

 mand become, that by many unprincipled deal- 

 ers several kinds of adulterations are used. 

 These, according to Mr. Halkett (Quar. Jmirn. 

 of Agric. vol. ii. p. 181), are the lime that has 

 been used in tan-works to take off the wool 

 and hair, old plaster lime, soap boilers' waste, 

 saw-dust, rotten wood, oyster-shells, &c. The 

 best remedy for these frauds Is fMhe farmer 

 to deal with only respectable crushers, and to 

 pay a fair price for the bones. 



There is, perhaps, no manure of whose 

 powers the chemical explanation is more easy ; 

 for of the earthy and purely animal matters of 

 which bones are composed, there is not a sin- 

 gle particle which is not a direct constituent 

 or food of vegetables ; thus, if carbon, hydro- 

 gen, and oxygen, are found in the abounding 

 oil and cartilage of bones, they are equally 

 common, nay, ever present, in all vegetable 

 matters : and if carbonate and phosphate of 

 lime are almost equally common in plants, 

 they are still more universally present in all 

 bones. 



The bones of animals do not vary much in 

 composition ; they all contain phosphate and 

 carbonate of lime, with a portion of cartilage 

 or animal matter, with other minor ingredients. 

 The bone of the ox has been analyzed by M. 

 Berzelius : he found that, by calcining these 

 bones, every 100 Ibs. lost 38 Ibs. in weight. 

 100 parts of these bones, before calcination, 

 consisted of 



Cartilage ------ 



Phosphate of lime - - - - 



Fluate of lime (Derbyshire spar) - 

 Carbonate of lime (chalk) 

 Phosphate of magnesia - 

 Soda, with a little common salt 



Parts. 



- 333 



- 55-35 



- 3. 



- 385 



- 2-05 



- 245 



100- 



Bones, however, vary slightly in composi- 

 tion, according to the age and condition of 

 :he animal, for MM. Fourcroy and Vauquelin 

 ibund some ox bones which they analysed, to 

 be composed of 



R 193 



