AND II O R T I C U L T U R A J. R E f i I S T E R . 



:— " = ■ ,- 'S' J5S 



Priit.lSHKD BY JOSi:i'H RREi-K & CO., NO 58 NOUTII MAllKKT STRKKT, (AuniciLTUiiAL Wa««mou.k.)-ALLEN PUTNAM, liDITOK. 



BOSTON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, JANUARY «>, 1841 



fpio. Stt. 



N. E. FARMER. 



For the Nfw England Farmer. 



BONES AND ASHES. 

 MX Pi't:«am, Esq. — Dear Sir — One question 

 ^leoted to nsk in my inquiries of Inst week : 

 this: — Wliicli would you choose for light 

 that y«u were about to lay down to grass, 

 or iowf.t, if hoth cost the same ? F do not 

 tliat you will iinderslmd me; Imt it is this : 

 le hundred bushels of spent ashes spread, 

 d cost a ci-rtain sum, would you, or not, prefer 

 », in quantity to amount to the same cost? 

 hat amount of bones would you apply to an 

 >f liijlit sandy soil ? 



hes cost with us, delivered and spread, about 

 9. per hushcl ; and ijround bones, unboiled, .W 

 cts., accordinof to fineness. 



Very truly yours with respect, 



VVM. C. CHAPIN. 

 »viJence, Jan. 17, 184'j. 



Any answer to a question like the forego- 

 nust be rather a matter of opinion than of 

 'ti/ge, until bones have had a more full trial 

 Dur coimni;nity has yet given to lliem. We 

 reply to the inquiry, but it will be with a 

 iousness that the answer ouglit not to have 

 weight v.iih any one ; for even tee are un- 

 g to have much confidence in the corrcclness 



opinion we now hold, until our e.xperience 



use of bones shall become more extensive 

 1 are undoubtedly very good for grass, and 

 «lto for most other crops. Light land is gen- 



favorable for both ashes and banes. The 

 aslies are snid to be more serviceable near 

 a coast where salt from the atmosphere coin- 

 with tliem, than they are in the interior, [f 

 e true, such aslies are worth more as a ma- 

 tt Providence, R. I., than they are in" most 

 of the country. Our own c.yperimenls and 

 if our careful observations have been nude 

 1 a very few miles of the ocean | and eien 

 we should now take the lioncs in preference 



ashes, if we could have but one. That is, 

 onld choo.se U5 bushels of bones rather than 

 "spent oshes. Could we, however, have . 50 

 Is of nshes and 12 1-2 of bones, and mix the 

 hiirouifliiy, adding to the mixture three or 

 arlloads of soil, and let the heap remain un- 

 )eJ and I'ermeot for two or three weeks pre- 

 to its apjilication to the land — we should 

 ,' this in preference to either by iiself We 



choose It, even if we had to deduct enough 

 he quantity of bone and ashes to pay for the 

 of niiiing. Oor tri-iis have been made with 



tliat were boiied before they were ground ; 

 with such, nc think we can do as well as 

 .shes, our correspondent who proposes to use 

 ed, pcrnap? may hope to do better. For 

 1 It be tru2 that the phosphate of linic is the 

 pal property in bones that ucls as a fertilizer : 

 lOiigh tins is not extracted by boiling — yet 

 ly and gelatinous matters which the boiiing 



docs remove, are good fertilizers, and llicrofuro un- Barn manure, 7.'i Iba. ; bono in drill, 10.") lbs. • bone 

 boiled bones, if the perishable lu.itters in them can spread, 82 lbs. ; muscle-bed, Hti 1-2 lbs. 

 bo preserved, are probably the best — particularly: " I aowed with ruta baga, June Ist, 10 drills 3 

 the lirst year. We give below extracts from the feet apart ond l.'i rmla long; five drills on barn 

 Transactions of the Hssrx .\griciilluiiil Soritty, i manure, part of it fresh from the barn cellar and 

 I^3^'. 1'hcsc di'tail uiir own experience with bones. ! pnrt partially decomposed, !» cords to ihfe iicr«. 

 "ShallT tell yon too what virtue there is In I .'!!!'*'""'" ,"7 "" '>"ne, .'.0 bushels to the acre! 

 bones .' From Mr Ward, of Roxburv, I obtaine.l, ' ^'"--^ «" "'« ''"'"-■ ""■'<= '""^^ ^otei. by the fly thait 

 last spring, 20 bushels ground bone ; (cost at Rox- "'* "thers, though tli.- others were not very badly 

 bury, :« cents per bushel ;) sold one bushel ,„ „ ! •".l"'"^''- '^ -^'/'P C' feet in length) across tl>« 



drills, where o had hone and '> manure partialtr 



hbor ; mixed the remaining 1!) bushels will, 

 about one cord of soil taken from the side of the 

 roads in the fields where the mixture was to be 

 used. Some of it waS used in ten or twelve days 

 afler it had been mixed, and some remained in 

 he.ip five or six weeks. .iVbout the lOih of May, 

 when planting corn where four cords of manure to 

 the acre had the previous autumn been turned un- 

 der the sod, and where I was putting four cords to 

 the ocre in the hill, I selected four rows through 

 the centre of the piece, in which I put the tjone 

 mixture, at the rate of 50 bushels bone to the acre 



decomposed, yielded : bono, 24d lbs. ; manure 'Zm 

 lbs. 



"Another strip, l(j 1-2 feet long, where there 

 was bone and fresh manure, gave bone, 212 lbs. ^ 

 manure, 227 lbs. 



"About the 10th of June, ( sowed ruta baga on 

 reclaimsd meadow land; drills :j feet apart; ma- 

 nure 9 cords to the acre; bone .50 bushels. Soon 

 after the plant-f came up, those on the barn ma- 

 nure ivere nearly all destroyed by the fly ; it was 

 necessary to sow a second time. Those on tli« 



no other manure in Ihe hill. The corn here looked I ^""^ \^'!-' ^"' ""y '''"'' '"J"'"^<^- ^""^ ''fi"»> 

 as well through the season as on the remainder of '"" ""^' '""5' ' ',? ^°"^' y''"^'^'"^ ■*^> ^■~ ">»• = <"'""- 



the piece, and ripened a little earlier. At the time 

 of harvesting, 104 lulls on bone yielded 181 lbs. of 

 corn on the cob. The same number of hills in the 

 adjacent rows on manure, yielded' 1S8 .3-4 lbs. 

 That on the bone was the dryest at the time of 

 weighing. 



" The first week in May, I planted a piece of 

 corn, where I put 3 1-2 cords of manure upon the 

 furrow, and 4 cords in the hill, to the acre. Throiigli 

 the centre, I left four rows until about the 10th of 

 May, when I planted them wilh bone, as in the 

 other piece. Here, from (iO hills on bone, I obtain- 

 ed 90 lbs. ; from (iG on manure, !l(i lbs. Here, 

 too, the corn on the bone ripened earlier, and of 

 course weighed less. 



"May 21st, when planting potatoes where four 

 cords of manure to the acre had been turned under 

 the sod the previous autumn, and where 1 was put- 

 ting five cords to the acre in the hill, two rows 

 were planted on bone, 50 bushels to the acre. This 

 ground was furrowed only one way, and the hills 

 on the bone happened to be put ilearer to each 

 other than those on the manure. When dug, equal 

 (;uan<i7i"(S of ground were taken; of bone, 14 hills; 

 of manure, 12 hills ; the bone yielded 55 lbs. ; the 

 manure .52. 



"Between the 15th and 20th of May, I sowed 

 sugar beet, in drills, 'i feet apart. In some, used 

 barn manure, G cords to t!ie acre ; in others, muscle 

 bed or sea marl, 5 cords; in others bone, 50 bush- 

 els. Three drills of each kind, about three rods 

 long, yielded as follows, viz: from barn manure, 

 247 lbs.; mu.scle-bed, :J55 lbs.; bone, ;ja7 1-2. 



" At the SBino season, I sowed carrots on barn 

 manure, muscle-bed and bone. Barn manure, 6 



on manure, 4.'i<j lbs. Da.niei, Pit.nam. 



North Danvers, Dee. 5, 1838." 



In the autumn of I83i), wc said to the farmers' 

 of Essex — 



"Bone manure, last season, did pretty well. In 

 all the uperaiions I have aided to make with it the 

 present year, it has been so mixed up with other 

 ingredients that it is impossible to judge of its effi- 

 [. |cacy. 'Ihe corn where it was used, wore in the 

 early part of the season, a most sorrowful and for- 

 lorn aspect; the warm suns of July, however, en- 

 livened its spirits and changed its complexion. lis 

 present size would rebuke me were I to assert thai 

 it has not found somewhere a pretty good suppir 

 of nourishment. In the field of a friend, who left, 

 his corn to feed upon bones and meadow mud, or 

 starve, its aspect a few weeks since, indicated that 

 the food was either difficult of mastication or hard 

 to digest. Its growth was less vigorous and it!*- 

 oppcaraiice less healthy than that of the surround- 

 ing corn upon "dificrent diet. A rust, a bad rust, 

 was upon all its leaves while the neighboring corn 

 on all sides was bright and healthy in its appear- 

 ance. Probably you euo find more economical 

 means of enriching your soils, than that of procur- 

 ing bones." 



The expert, ent upon which the above remark» 

 were founded, was this: — About (50 bushels of 

 bone and (JO bushels of live ashes were mixed with 

 three cords of soil. .After two or three weeks' 

 fermentation, this compost was put in the hill foi' 

 three acres of cofn. About 20 bushels of bone and 

 20 of ashes per acre. Four cords of good bara 

 manure per acre had previously been plowed in. 

 One acre of this field yielded 80 bushels of corn ; 

 but iliis acre was much the best. We then thought 



cords to the acre; muscle-bed, 4; bone, 50 busli 



' • ' "^' ""="' . Kill iMio ouic W03 iiiucii me PBsi. >\ e men inought 



els. bonie of the hone and the other manures I p^ottv well of bones ; but judging from the effects 

 were spread broadcast and a part of the bone was | ,„,on the first crop only, the conclusion was that 

 put in the drill ; rows 14 inches apart Two row, | „her manures might be procured at less expense 

 ofeach kind, three rods long, yielded as follows: ■ compared wilh Ibcir cffects.—The 



field of coriv 



