BONES. 



bones for the turnips. The remainder of the 

 field, of exactly the same description of soil, 

 \vas well manured with farm-yard dung, for 

 potatoes, mangel wurzel, and vetches, to be 

 used for soiling. This was then sown with 

 wheat; but, being first well set over with a 

 compost of lime and soil, the wheat plant on 

 this part during winter and spring looked much 

 better than the boned part of the field, but did 

 not prove so good a crop ; but the difference 

 in favour of the bones was not much. Oats 

 succeeded here, also, with seeds, but the oat 

 crop bid not prove half so productive any- 

 where as on the part boned; and the clover 

 was still more inferior, and mowed only once, 

 the second crop not being considered worth 

 mowing, while the part boned, alongside of it, 

 was as much as could be well mown." 



There appears to be on many grass soils 

 some care requisite to ensure the greatest ad- 

 vantage from the application of the bones ; 

 and this observation is not confined to any 

 particular district, since it is strongly alluded 

 to in the following extract from a letter of Mr. 

 William Lewis, of Trentham in Staffordshire, 

 transmitted to me in September last, in an 

 r bli^ing communication of his Grace the Duke 

 i land: 



"I have never," says this intelligent farmer, 

 'applied less than one ton of crushed bones 

 per acre for turnips drilled in, and have been 

 generally successful in growing that crop ; and 

 their good effects (I mean the bones) are most 

 conspicuously shown and felt on the grass 

 irop that follows the turnips, showing to an 

 inch how far the ground has been manured 

 with them. I have no genuine fertile land, it 

 tjLM'ni: nearly all of a light, dry, sandy, hungry 

 nature ; but I have now excellent pastures for 

 sheep, which I greatly ascribe to the use of 

 bones ; for the pastures following barley which 

 have been manured with dung I find very in- 

 ferior to that manured with bones (the differ- 

 ence in the barley crop not being perceivable) 

 so much so, that I am upon the eve of break- 

 ing up some of my pasture fields which have 

 lain three years, and were intended for perma- 

 nent pasture ; for those manured at the same 

 time with bones are still looking beautiful, 

 with a close, fine, even bottom. I have also 

 applied bones to pastures, and they have gene- 

 rally improved the herbage and verdure very 

 greatly. The top-dressing with the bones I 

 would recommend to be done in moist weather, 

 when the ground is pretty well covered with 

 grass. I consider from one and a half to two 

 tons per acre to be a fair dressing. After sow- 

 ing them, the ground should be well brushed, 

 harrowed length and breadthways, then heavily 

 rolled, and all stock taken from the field for at 

 least ten days. I have seen bones applied to 

 bare pastures, with little or no covering, done 

 in hot, dry weather, showing no beneficial 

 effects whatever afterwards." There is no 

 doubt of the superior advantage of rolling the 

 bones into the soil ; for fresh, or green bones, 

 as they are called in Cheshire, when they are 

 exposed to the atmosphere for some time, lose 

 from one fifth to one fourth of their weight; 

 and even boiled bones, under similar circum- 

 stances, ara reduced one third in weight. A 

 26 



BONES. 



bushel of crushed green bones, of the three- 

 quarter of an inch size, weighs about 45 li:s. 



the same bulk of bone-rf^ 54 Ibs. : 75 bushels 

 of crushed green bones weigh about one ton 

 and a half, the same bulk of boiled bones about 

 two tons. The average weight of the bones 

 of an ox is about 2 cwt., or about one fourth of 

 the carcase free from offal ; the bones of a sheep 

 about 21 Ibs., supposing the carcase to average 

 84 Ibs. So that, according to this calculation, 

 allowing twenty bushels of crushed bones to 

 manure an acre, the bones of five bullocks or 

 horses, or fifty sheep, are requisite to suppl/ 

 the necessary dressing. 



Liebig recommends the following method as 

 the one by which the benefits may be most 

 speedily derived from bone applications. "The 

 most easy and practical mode of effecting their 

 division is," he says, "to pour over the bones, 

 in a state of fine powder, half of their weight 

 of sulphuric acid diluted with three or four 

 parts of water,-and after they have been di- 

 gested for some time, to add one hundred parts 

 of water, and sprinkle this mixture over the 

 field before the plough. In a few seconds, the 

 free acids unite with the bases contained in the 

 earth, and a neutral salt is formed in a verv 

 fine state of division." 



A convenient mode of preparing vitriolized 

 bones, or super-phosphate of lime, is to make a 

 hollow in the centre of a heap of fine mould, 

 and place in this crater the bones to be dis- 

 solved. Upon these apply, gradually, sul- 

 phuric acid, in weight equal to half the weight 

 of the bones. These will soon be dissolved, 

 after which the heap of mould and bones 

 is to be thoroughly mixed by shovelling to- 

 gether. 



Another method is described by Mr. Spooner, 

 in which the ground bones, being placed in a 

 hogshead, have poured upon them one-third 

 of their weight of oil of vitriol ; that is to say, 

 GO Ibs. of the sulphuric acid, to 180 Ibs. or about 

 4 bushels of bones. The acid, mixed with 

 half its bulk or measure of water, previously to 

 putting upon the bones, will suddenly produce 

 very great heat, equal to about 300 of Fahren- 

 heit's thermometer. Too much care cannot be 

 taken to prevent the acid from burning the 

 clothes or skin of those employed in this work. 

 After the bones are sufficiently dissolved, they 

 are mixed with ashes, so as to bring them to a 

 state convenient for application by the drill or 

 otherwise. Prepared in this way, the fertilizing 

 properties of bones are rendered much more 

 soluble. Mr. Spooner cites a case in which 

 two bushels of the vitriolized bones, with ashes, 

 gave as good a crop as sixty bushels of com- 

 mon ground bones. 



In manuring the light lands, cultivated on 

 the four-course system, with bones and wish 

 bones only, for a long series of years, I would 

 advise the farmer, whenever he finds any symp- 

 toms of his ground failing to produce clover 

 so well as it was once used to do, to add i 

 that case a dressing of gypsum, either \i 

 the bones or with the grass seeds. The value 

 of this latter manure, which is amply suffi- 

 cient, when applied in quantities of not ex 

 ceeding 2 cwt. per acre, being in most silua 

 tions trifling. There is every reason to believe 



