186 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



April 



per. It was first blenched and then colored for 

 that purposi', and is valued at 12^ cents also. The 

 inventors of" it, B. A. Darendor and Henry Lowe, 

 of Baltimore, arc sanguine that with proper ap- 

 paratus a pajier can be manufactured of reeds or 

 •wood, as tlie main staple, by their process, worth 

 12i to 10 cents, and at a cost not exceeding Gj 

 cents per pound. 



For the New England Farmer. 



CHEAP EXPERIMENT IN DECOMPOS- 

 ING BONES. 



The value of bones ai^a manure, ground or pulver- 

 ized, and more especially dissolved and formed into 

 super-phosphate of lime, is now just beginning to 

 be appreciated by practical agriculturists in this 

 country, as its beneficial effects, upon root-crojos 

 particularly, have come to be known by experi- 

 ence. 



Formerly bones were only regarded among us, 

 as a nuisance, to be thrown in the street, or to be 

 dumped into some hole with the skeletons of old 

 tin pans and kettles, broken pots, &c.; — and the 

 carcases of defunct cows and horses were carted 

 away into some lonely swamp, or distant place in 

 the wood ; and not till they had been made an ex- 

 port, for several years, from this country, by our 

 English Ijrethren, did it occur to the American 

 cultivator that "old bones" could be of any pos- 

 sible use. 



But when our good farmers began to feel that 

 the saving of manure was a tiling of such vast impor- 

 tance, and that the barn-cellar — as my old grand- 

 father used to say to his gardener — was their 

 " jewel box," then they began to look around them 

 for material ; and leaves, sods, ashes, pond-mud, 

 peat-earth, oyster-shells, bones, &c., came in use 

 to encourage and aid a more enlightened economi- 

 cal farming. 



Yet still, a great obstacle in the way of the more 

 general use of bones, is the expense and difficulty 

 attending tlieir pulverization or decomposition. 

 However prudent a farmer may be in collecting and 

 saving bones, skeletons and carcases, if there is no 

 "bono mill" anywhere within a dozen or twenty 

 miles of him, he is no lietter off for manures than 

 before ; as it is well known, that half a century 

 may pass over them in an unpulverized state witli- 

 out very much of their nutritious qualities being 

 extracted, even during such a lapse of years. 

 Again, the expense and laborious care of decom- 

 posing them with sulphuric acid or vitriol, — es- 

 pecially to the majority of farmers, who are not 

 accustomed to such delicate jobs as handling sul- 

 phuric acid, and making nice experiments with 

 chemicals, — discourage the mass of them from at- 

 tempting to go into the manufacture of " home 

 made super-phosphate of lime." 



Hence it lieconics an important inquiry, espe- 

 cially as tliis manure is found to be so exceedingly 

 valuable, whether some cheap and easy way of de- 

 composing l)ones cannot be discovered, for the bene- 

 fit of the common fiirm. 



Without alluding to other experiments, in re- 

 gard to dissolving hones in strong lye, &c., — that- 

 have been partially successful, I propose, here, 

 in as few words as possible, to describe an experi- 

 ment, made on a small scale, with bones and horse 

 manure, that may lead many readers to still fur- 

 ther experiments, and at length end in some im- 

 portant practical result. 



An intelligent and thoughtful neighbor of mine, 

 Mr. Edward Willis, a soap manufacturer — whose 

 father Inis taken a great deal of interest for many 

 years in agriculture, especially in the aj^plication 

 of ashes to light worn-out lands, and from whom 

 our great neighbor, the late Daniel Webster, used 

 to pi-oeure hundreds of bushels of ashes a j'ear for 

 similar lands — recently made an experiment of 

 this kind. Taking a quantity of bones, none of 

 tliem perhaps larger, and most of them smaller, 

 tlian a man's two fists, he made a good layer of 

 fresh horse dung, on which he placed a layer of 

 bones, then another layer of manure, then a layer 

 of bones, and so on, to the top, covering the heap 

 over well with the dung. It lay somewhat longer 

 than he intended, and was allowed to become to 

 some degree fire-fanged, but the bones ivere utterly 

 dccomposid, disintegrated and dissolved. So that 

 the whole heap had become a homogeneous mass, 

 and you could not even detect any bones in it. Now, 

 why would not this manure be fully equal to 

 ground bones, — be nearly or about as good as any 

 of the super-phosphates, — even the "Improved 

 Super-phosphate" of our delightful and scientific 

 friend. Prof. Mapes, which I have found so very 

 valuable, especially in its application to my root 

 crops, pear trees, lvc. Mr. Willis thought in a 

 further experiment, that he should either manage 

 to moisten the heap, or else not allow the mixture 

 to remain so many weeks undisturbed ; and I 

 suggested to him the advantage of covering over 

 the whole mixture at the very commencement of 

 such experiment with charcoal, peat earth, plas- 

 ter or some absorbent of ammonia, and then after 

 the decomposition of the bones had been effected, 

 to mix it in with the rest of the heap. 



I have thus written out an account of this ex- 

 periment, so very successful as A\r as dissolving 

 the bones is concerned, as a matter of suggestion 

 to others, and with the hope that it would induee 

 some of our practical farmers, at a time of leisure, 

 to try the same experiment, and after they have 

 made application of the manure thus manufac- 

 tured, to give to their brethren through the me- 

 dium of the New England Farmer, an account 

 of its fertilizing effects as compared with other 

 <;ompost8. James Richardsox, Jr. 



Kingston, Feb. 11, 1854. 



Re.marks. — Capital. This will be the means of 

 cleaning up many a door-yard, as well as doub- 

 ling the turnip crops. 



For the Tfew England Farmer. 



PROFITS OF SHEEP. 



Mr. Editor : — Having a short time since seen 

 in your paper a notice of the great income of the 

 Vermont sheep, I have thought it might not be 

 amiss to say something of the income of sheep in 

 Maine. The income of my 18 sheep, that I win- 

 tered last winter, has been $90,80, the present 

 year. In April, I sold one sheep that did not 

 have a lamb, for $4. For the wool sheared from 

 the other 17, I received $31,80, having 40 cents 

 per pound. For 24 lambs, I received $-55. My 

 sheep number the same as last winter, keeping one 

 of my lambs to supply the place of the sheep I 

 sold. Jane A. Morrison. 



ParsonsvUle, Me., Feb., 1854. 



