BONES. 



BONES. 



ations, even in London, after a fire / and for 

 precisely the same reason the ashes of wood 

 abound in phosphate of lime. Bones have 

 been hitherto principally employed upon the 

 turnip crop, but there is another, the potato 

 plant, to which they seem admirably adapted ; 

 and of this opinion was Mr. Knight, the late 

 President of the Horticultural Society; he ob- 

 M-rved to me in a communication dated March 

 26, 1836, written with his usual anxious 

 solicitude to assist on every occasion in 

 any researches which tended to the improved 

 cultivation of the earth, " I have one large 

 farm, upon which rises a sufficient quantity 

 of spring water to work a thrashing machine 

 and a bone mill, at all seasons ; and upon that 

 I have erected a machine for crushing bones, 

 which my tenant has used largely. The soil 

 is generally strong and argillaceous, but upon 

 this the bone manure operates well, and it is 

 applied by a drill to the turnip ground. My 

 tenant finds that it acts according to the quan- 

 tity of oleaginous matter which it contains ; 

 and I cannot help thinking, that taking away 

 that part must destroy to a very great extent 

 the operation of the manure during at least 

 one year ; particularly if the bones be crushed 

 nearly to dust before boiling. I have tried 

 other animal substances, such as hair, feathers, 

 and the parings and dust of white leather, and 

 none of these have operated till they have had 

 some weeks to decompose. The white leather 

 parings, being almost entirely composed of 

 gelatine, I expect operate very soon, but I found 

 that turnips drilled in over a very sufficient 

 quantity of it did not begin to grow kindly till 

 September ; and I do not entertain a shadow 

 of a doubt but that if bones, after being crushed, 

 were mixed with four or five times their 

 weight of earth, their operation, as a manure, 

 immediately, would be greatly increased. It 

 could not, however, then be conveniently 

 drilled in with the seed, and that process, 

 whenever the soil is poor, is very important, 

 because by being placed close to the seedling 

 plant, that gets well nourished while young. 

 I cannot doubt but the bone manure must con- 

 tinue to operate as long as decomposition of 

 the original substance continues, and under 

 this impression I am willing to find capital to 

 purchase it, upon the tenant's paying a fair 

 amount of increased rent. Much would, of 

 (tourse, depend upon the bones being more or 

 less crushed ; but I cannot think that a good 

 manuring of bone-dust can, under any circum- 

 stances, be soon entirely expended. I have 

 seen bone-dust applied in considerable quanti- 

 ties in planting stone fruit trees, as peaches and 

 plums, with good effect, though such are al- 

 ways greatly injured or destroyed by the appli- 

 cation of stable-yard dung in the same way. 

 My tenant applies his bone manure wholly to 

 his turnips, and the stable-yard manure to the 

 wheat field, in opposition certainly to my opi- 

 nion ; as I think wheat crops yield best when 

 the soil is firm, and turnip crops best when it 

 is hollow, and he purposes to try the effect of 

 reversing the process. If the turnip plant is 

 capable of deriving nourishment from frag- 

 ments of bones, which have been boiled, after 

 being crushed, their roots must, I conceive, 



have a power of decomposing the substance 

 of the bone ; which appears very improbable, 

 though many plants appear to exercise such 

 power on silicious earth. I have somewhere 

 read an account of experiments, which appeared 

 to prove that the silex found in the epidermis 

 of the different species of Equisetum, grapes, 

 &c., is really dissolved and taken up from the 

 soil, and subsequently deposited in an organic 

 form ; but as the plants which were subjected 

 to experiment might, owing to having been 

 feeble and sickly, not have deposited any, or 

 the usual portion of silex, I am not satisfied 

 that the remaining half of flint, after its oxy- 

 gen has been driven off, is a simple substance. 

 The number of simple elements (admitting the 

 existence of matter) I suspect to be very 

 small ; such was the opinion of my late la- 

 mented friend, Sir H. Davy. I think it proba- 

 ble that quicklime, if applied to bones contain- 

 ing much oily matter, would operate power- 

 fully by reducing such oil to the state of soap, 

 readily soluble in water; but a part of the 

 ammonia might by this process be dissipated 

 and lost. Valuable as bone-dust certainly is 

 as a manure to the turnips, I doubt whether it 

 may not be employed with more advantage as 

 a manure for the potato ; and my tenant is in- 

 clined to think that the potato crop, though 

 wholly consumed upon the farm, will best re- 

 pay him. The bone manure, when employed 

 to nourish the potato plant, might be buried 

 in the soil two months before it would be ma- 

 terially wanted; and the crops of barley and 

 oats, upon all except light soils, are much bet- 

 ter after potatoes than after turnips, both being 

 carted off the ground. Early varieties which 

 do not blossom are the most valuable, as they 

 afford the most certain crops, and will be 

 quite ready to be taken up in August, after 

 which the ground may be well prepared for 

 wheat. Of such potatoes I have obtained a 

 produce equivalent to 963$ bushels of 80 Ibs., 

 and 1248| bushels of 60 Ibs. But early pota- 

 toes vegetate again late in autumn, and they 

 then become much better food without being 

 steamed, than previously." 



The way in which bone-dust is usually em- 

 ployed as a manure for potatoes is decidedly 

 wrong; it is used in much too fresh a state. 

 This error long deceived and perplexed the 

 turnip growers of the east of England, who 

 now invariably let the bone-dust ferment, 

 either by itself, or mixed with earth, for some 

 weeks before it is applied to the soil. And all 

 my experiments have concurred in their re- 

 sult with those of my neighbours in Essex, 

 that if the bones are mixed with five or six 

 times their bulk of earth, and are turned over 

 and mixed together some weeks before they are 

 spread on the potato ground, the more valuable 

 is the application. And this remark is not 

 confined to its use for potatoes ; oats and bar- 

 ley are proportionally benefitted by the pre- 

 vious fermentation and partial dissolution of 

 the bones in the mixed earth. The same ob- 

 servation must apply to Indian corn. 



It is impossible, in any agricultural experi- 

 ment, to give very minute directions for the 

 farmer's guidance, since soil, climate, and situ- 

 ation, as regards temperature and easy access 



199 



garos temperatui 



