ELEMENTS OP 



from beech, most serviceable. With every 100 pounds 

 of the ashes of the beech j<pread over a soil, we furnish 

 as much phosphates as 460 pounds of fresh night soil 

 could yield. But night-soil contains other useful mat- 

 ters besides phosphates ; hence the utility of mixed com- 

 posts ; as, evidently, the ashes of the beech could not 

 alone secure fertility. 



■ Bone manure possesses still greater importance than 

 wood ashes as a substitute for an indefinite and large 

 supply of animal excrement. The primary sources from 

 which the bones of animals are derived, are— the hay, 

 straw, or other substances which they take as food. 

 Now, bones contain more than half their weight of the 

 phosphates of lime and magnesia ; and hay contains as 

 much of these sails as wheat straw. It follows, then, 

 that 8 pounds of bones contain as much phosphate of 

 lime as 1000 pounds of hay or wheat straw ; and 2 

 pounds of bones as much as is found in 1000 of the 

 grain of wheat or oats. These numbers express pretty 

 exactly the quantity of phosphates which a soil yields 

 annually on the growth of hay and corn. Upon every 

 acre of land appropriated,to the growth of wheat, clover, 

 potatoes, or turnips, forty pounds of bone-dust will be 

 found sufficient to furnish an adequate supply of phos- 

 phates for three successive crops. 



To secure the best application of bones, they should 

 be reduced to powder; and the more intimately they 

 are mixed with the soil, the more easily are they taken 

 up and assimilated. The most easy and practical mode 

 of effecting this, is to pour over the bones, in powder, 

 half their weight of sulphuric acid, (or oil of vitriol,) di- 

 luted with three or four parts of water ; and after they 

 have remained in contact some time — say a fortnight — 

 to add one hundred parts of water, and sprinkle this 

 mixture over the field before the plough. Bones maybe 

 preserved unchanged, for thousands of years, in dry, or 

 even in moist soils, provided the access of rain be pre- 

 vented, as is exemplified by the bones of animals buried 

 previous to the flood, found in loam or gypsum — the 

 interior parts being protected by the exterior from the 



