BONES. 



BONES. 



that in those cases which have puzzled the 

 Nottinghamshire farmers, where the land, 

 after a long course of successful bone-dress- 

 ing, has at last refused to produce clover, that 

 the gradual exhaustion of the soil of the sul- 

 jphate of lime, so essential to the growth of 

 clover, has been the sole cause of the failure ; 

 and that the following facts, published by his 

 Grace the Duke of Portland, in April, 1838 (to 

 whom I have on more than one occasion been 

 obliged for valuable agricultural information), 

 are readily to be explained in this way the 

 farm-yard dung, with which a portion of the 

 overboned clover was dressed in these experi- 

 ments would return to that section of the field 

 a portion of the sulphate of lime, and hence 

 the superior product of clover on the soil to 

 which it was applied. 



"In 1834, two fields of sand land adjacent 

 to Clumber Park, the one at right angles to the 

 other, each containing about twenty acres, 

 were sown with seeds among barley; when- 

 ever these fields had been sown with turnips, 

 for twenty years before 1825, they had always 

 been manured with bones ; in that year they 

 were largely so manured. The seeds sown 

 with barley in 1826 having been burnt up in 

 that dry summer, in 1828 the land in both 

 those fields was again broken up. In 1829 it 

 was again fallowed with turnips, and manured 

 with bones. In 1833 both these fields were 

 again sown with turnips, parts of each of 

 which were manured with bones, and the re- 

 mainder with farm-yard dung. (The Times 

 Newspaper, April, 1838.) 



"In 1834, when the corn was cut, it was 

 found that the seeds had failed in each of these 

 fields where the bones had been applied, and 

 that they were very good where they had been 

 manured with dung. In one of these fields the 

 failure exactly followed the line of the differ- 

 ence of the manures, with two exceptions, that 

 the seeds did not quite fail in two spots where 

 formerly there had been dung-heaps. In the 

 other field, the failure did not so exactly follow 

 the line of demarcation, but the exceptions 

 were very few. Generally speaking, the ma- 

 nured land is better than the boned land, but the 

 difference of quality is not great ; the crop of 

 barley. on the manured land had been at the 

 rate of five quarters per acre, on the other 

 four. 



" Immediately after harvest, fresh seeds were 

 sown on the boned land ; they came up very 

 thick, but in six weeks died and disappeared. 

 During the winter the land was again fallowed, 

 and fresh seeds were again sown in the spring 

 of 1835. They cannot be said to have failed, 

 but they were a very inferior crop ; and not- 

 withstanding a manuring of farm-yard dung 

 applied as a top-dressing the following spring, 

 they have not yet recovered a parity with the 

 rest of the fields. In this case it seems im- 

 possible to attribute the failure of these seeds, 

 where they have failed, to any other cause 

 than the bones, which had certainly been ap- 

 JK plied with unusual abundance ; and it is the 

 f more surprising, that such a cause should have 

 produced such an effect; because, in the early 

 periods of the use of that manure, it appeared 

 10 be in no respect more advantageous than in 

 202 



' its tendency to encourage the growth of the 

 j clovers. Of this tendency, the most remark- 

 able instances have been repeatedly seen on 

 very poor land, and none more so than one 

 i which occurred on a very poor piece of land 

 prepared for a plantation by a crop of turnips, 

 manured for with forty bushels per acre, on 

 which, between the trees, a great deal of clover 

 has spontaneously sprung up. Previously to 

 this land having been broken up for turnips, 

 scarcely a plant of clover was to be seen. 

 Now, the fields on which the seeds have failed 

 had (as above stated) received, much more 

 frequently than usual, complete dressings of 

 bones. 



"If the preceding statement required any 

 confirmation, it has received it in 1837. In 

 this year a field, which had been turnips in 

 1836, had been laid down to grass. The north 

 side of this field is very inferior sand land, and 

 as, till lately, it was supposed that such land 

 would not pay for the expense of bones, they 

 had never been applied to it. For the first 

 time, in 1836, bones were used for the turnip 

 fallow. The south side of this field, which for 

 many years has always been manured with 

 bones, when in fallow for turnips, was divided 

 into four divisions ; the western side was ma- 

 nured with farm-yard dung ; that next to it with 

 bones ; the two eastern divisions were manured, 

 the one with rape dust, and the other with malt 

 culms. After harvest,' the seeds on the north 

 side appeared to be best ; then those on the 

 western side of the field; then those on the 

 two eastern divisions, which were rather in- 

 ferior ; and those on that where the bones had 

 been applied were visibly the worst. The frost 

 has been so injurious to the seeds, that this 

 difference between the three eastern divisions 

 is not now so marked as it was before the 

 frost; but the superiority of the northern side 

 and the western division is very apparent." 



Bone manure presents to the cottager, or .] 

 cultivator of small plots of poor ground, as 

 under the allotment system, a ready and cheap 

 mode of permanently improving the land. It 

 would be well, perhaps, in some instances, if 

 the managers, under this excellent plan, were 

 to apply the manure for the holder ; and that, 

 too, if they even thought it necessary to add, 

 in consequence, to the amount of the rent. For 

 ornamental plantations of trees there can be 

 no manure more advantageous than bones. 

 There is a considerable portion of phosphate 

 of lime in all timber trees, and there is no 

 manure of a mixed animal, earthy, and saline 

 nature which remains so long in the soil, 

 mixed with earth; and thus previously fer- i 

 mented bones are an excellent dressing for i 

 vines, and have been used with decided advan- i 

 tage. As a manure for the use of the con- , 

 servatory and the flower-garden, there is no I 

 fertilizer more useful than bone-dust; or, what ji 

 is a still more elegant application, the turnings i 

 and chippings of the bone turners. Those of ; 

 Birmingham have long been employed by my i 

 friend, Maund, of Bromsgrove, the able author i 

 of The Botanic Garden. He finds that their use ) 

 not only promotes the luxuriance of the plant 

 but the beauty of the flowers. The Sheffiel< 

 florists are well aware of the value of boi 



