NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



413 



For the New England Farmer. 

 STEAMING BONES. 



Gentlemen : — You will please continue the 

 New England Farmer. * * * * 



Will you also be kind enough to give me some 

 information regarding the kind of apparatus neces- 

 sary to be attached to a steam boiler, such as tan- 

 ners use for steaming hides ; or, in other words, 

 the kind of receiver (a.) to contain the bones, and 

 receive the steam. Also, the amount of steam 

 pressure (h.) necessary to cause the bones to pul- 

 verize easily. By answering the above questions 

 you will confer a favor. 



Respectfully, O. A. Hill. 



Yarmouth, Maine, Nov. 13, 1851. 



Remarks. — Various methods have been resorted 

 to in order to reduce bones to a pulp or powder so 

 as to use them as a manure ; and they have been 

 found so valuable as to justify the erection of cost- 

 ly machines to reduce them, where they were col- 

 lected in large quantities. But what is important 

 to be known is this : — where only a few bushels or 

 barrels of bones are collected during the year, 

 what is the cheapest and best way of reducing 

 them, so that they become available as a manure? 

 There are various ways of accomplishing this, but 

 nearly all of them too expensi' e to be brought into 

 use by the farmer, as a single farm operation. 



(a.) In reply to the first question of our corres- 

 pondent, we would say that, the only receiver that 

 we have an account of is constructed of the com- 



mixed with three cart-loads of coal-ashes, and left 

 to remain for a week, during which time it was 

 turned over two or three times. Tiie cost was 

 about $3 per acre, and the crop much improved. 



We have noticed in soap-making that the bones 

 which have been boiled in strong caustic ley have 

 become so soft as to be easily reduced to a pow- 

 der; this suggests the inquiry whether they may 

 not very easily be reduced in this manner by any 

 person who desires to use them as a manure. 



Mr. Miles, of the Royal Agricultural Society of 

 England, has discovered a process for preparing 

 bones for manure without the use of acids; and, 

 instead of sand, ashes, or earth, he uses saw-dust 

 as the material for covering up the heaps, double 

 the amount of heat being evolved, and the disinte- 

 gration being effected much more rapidly and ef- 

 fectually. He piled up the bones into a heap, 

 which he first moistened well with water, and then 

 covered it over to a depth of 2 or 3 inches with 

 saw-dust, by means of which not only were the 

 bones speedily converted into manure, but the 

 saw-dust also. By this process, however, the de- 

 composition of much ammonia takes place, and es- 

 capes in a volatile state, as it is developed, and is 

 lost. 



Some of the above, with many other valuable 

 facts, will be found in the American Muck Book, 

 of which we recently spoke, and to which we re- 

 fer those who desire more particular information on 

 the subject of bone manure. The subject is also 



mon boiler plate iron one-eighth of an inch thick, 



made in the circular form, six feet long and three! ably described by Prof. Norton, in an article copied 



feet four inches in diameter. This is large enough 

 to contain eiffht or nine hundred weight of bones. 

 This boiler has a false bottom upon which the 

 bones are laid, and the water for steaming is be- 

 low. It is set in mason-work, and arranged other- 

 wise with regard to fire, smoke, &c., as ordinary 

 boilers are. 



(6.) In order to pulverize the bones thoroughly, 

 they require the steam of 24 hours, kept as uni- 

 formly as possible at a pressure of 25 lbs. to a 

 square inch. With this steaming they are easily 

 crushed to a coarse powder as they are taken from 

 the boiler. It is manifest this process will not an- 

 swer for our farmers generally. 



Another method, that of reducing them by fer- 

 mentation, we gave in the Farmer of the 7th of 

 June and the 16th of August last, to which tlie 

 reader is referred. 



The mode which seems to be the cheapest and 

 most convenient is to dissolve them in sulphuric 

 acid, the common oil of vitriol of the shops. It 

 was a discovery by Liebig, and has been pretty 

 thoroughly tested by others. The experiment be- 

 low was given by the English Agricultural Socie 

 ty Journal. The writer says — I last year manured 

 5 acres with only 13 bushels of bone-dust dissolved 

 in 270 lbs. of sulphuric acid and 150 gallons of 

 wnter. After standing 24 hours, the liqui'^ wis 



into the Farmer, of the eleventh of October last. 



For the New England Farmer. 

 OILING AXLES. 



I don't know when I have seen an article in an 

 agricultural paper about oiling wheels, as it is 

 called, or, more properly, the axles. Perhaps a 

 few words upon this subject, which seems some- 

 what homely, may be worthy of attention. You 

 know what the practice is, to take anything and 

 everything to grease an axle. With iron axles 

 people are a little more particular ; but wooden 

 ones are served with tar, and pot skimming, and 

 dirty grease of every kind. Now I don't believe 

 in the economy of wooden axletrees at all, and I 

 shall say nothing against any preparation which 

 their owners choose to apply to them. 



But some put grease — salt bacon fat — on to iron 

 axles. This is better than nothing, to be suie. 

 The people in some pans of the world eat the like 

 for butter, when they can get no other or better. 

 Cheap oil is the article commonly used. This con- 

 tains so much sticky matter, that if a small portion of 

 it could be introduced among the improvements, or, 

 should I say, inventions of the day, we should hear 

 less of the want of adhesion of stamps and envel- 

 opes! 



I have used cheap oil and found the axles need- 

 ed some put on twice a week ; and then the wheels 

 wouldn't chuck freely, as they should do. Besides, 

 a coaling would form over a portion of the arm as 

 loiinti IS Ipntlipr. T hrive Icnowii n wIippI nnnn a 



