BONES AND THEIR USES. 



State ■, — add to this, the amount used by every fam- 

 ily, also for mechanical and manufacturing pur- 

 poses, and the aggregate would swell the amount 

 almost past credence. Things cannot go on m this 

 manner, and those who are wise in time may profit 

 thereby. 



BONIS AND IHETR USES. 



The introduction and general use of bones in their 

 various degrees of fineness form an important epoch 

 In the history of agriculture. Their use had long 

 been confined to the mechanic arts, as handles for 

 utensils of various kinds, as buttons for our clothes, 

 (fee, and tons upon tons of the refuse of comb aud 

 button factories and the horn piths of the tanner, 

 were allowed to waste, without contributing to the 

 fertility and amelioration of the soil. Even when 

 experiment and trial had fully shown their utility as 

 a fertilizer, prejudice and ignorance still prevented 

 Uieir use. It was urged, and very plausibly, too, that 

 they would breed worms in the soil, and thereby in- 

 jure the growth of herbage — forgetting th?.t the 

 animal or insect that lives on animal tiesh or sub- 

 stances, is, by the very nature of its organization, 

 unable to derive its support from vegetables; and 

 also ignorant of the fact that every species of the 

 nutritive grasses or grains contains bone-earth in a 

 greater or less degree. The fact has been known for 

 centuries, that animals fed on land that has long been 

 used for pasturage, would oftentimes manifest an inor- 

 dinate craving for bones, ashes, or earth, even. The 

 fact that they craved such things, led to an examinar 

 tion of their composition, and also, in connection 

 with it, an analysis of the soils on which they had 

 been pastured. Analysis at once revealed the fact 

 that bone-earth, or phosphate of lime, was wanting in 

 those soils; and as soon as the fields were sown with 

 bone-dust, and time had been given for the herbage 

 to be benefited by its application, the disease iu ques- 

 tion disappeared. Mr. Levi Bartlett, in the Prac- 

 tical Farmer, gives statements of similar series of 

 facts occurring in his own e.xperience. 



Many accounts have been given in our agricultural 

 journals, of fields which seemed to possess every ele- 

 ment of fertility, the soil appearing to answer every 

 oondition requisite to the growing of crops, but which 

 Med to yield a remunerative harvest to the cultiva- 

 tor. On analysis they were found to be deficient in 

 phosphate of lime, or bone-earth. 



It is a singular fact that in the analysis of the re- 

 mams of the bones of extinct animals of former geo- 



logical epochs, fluorine seems to be substituted in 

 place of phosphorus, thus appearing to be isomer- 

 phous in its relations to lime and its compounds. 

 Traces of fluorine are found in many of our vegeta- 

 ble productions as well as mineral; but such is the 

 energy of its action on nearly every element which 

 enters into the materials of a working laboratory, 

 that it is e.vtremely difficult to isolate it and examine 

 its properties in detail. We may judge somewhat as 

 to its power of chemical affinity, from the fact, that 

 a fraction of a grain of fluate of lime is capable of 

 deeply etching a large surface of a plate of glass. 



Bones are composed of about one part of organio 

 matter and two parts of inorganic or mineral mattei. 

 By the gradual decay of their organic portions in 

 the soil, ammonia is furnished to the growing plant, 

 and also lime and phosphorous to the seed. 



Tliough so much has been said in former volumes 

 of the Par.mer as to their utility and efficiency as a 

 fertilizer, yet we apprehend that hardly one farmer in 

 ten is careful to save what bones he finds on his own 

 premises — much less purchase them in a state anits>- 

 able for immediate use. The duration of their effects 

 depends ujjon the size into which they are broken: if an 

 immediate and palpable benefit is wanted, pulverize 

 them as finely as possible, or still better, by dissolving 

 them in sulphuric acid (oil of vitriol) convert the io- 

 soluble phosphate of lime into the soluble bi-phosphata 

 (superphosphate.) 



The Ibrm in which phosphorous and lime are con> 

 bined naturally, is one equivalent of each, constituting 

 an insoluble salt; and while in this state, it is only as the 

 phosphoric acid is slowly replaced by the carbonis 

 acid ever present in the atmosphere, that it is un- 

 locked from its combination, and made available. 



In the form of what are called half-inch bones, 

 their effects continue for many years, as is seen in the 

 gradual supplanting of the coarser grasses by the 

 finer and more nutritious kinds. For instance, white 

 clover will not flourish if bone-earth be wanting in 

 the soil. 



Prof. Shepard found by an analysis of the cotton 

 pl.ant — seed and fibre — that 16J per c at. of the 

 dried plant consisted of phosphoric acid; of the fibre, 

 18.8 per cent; of the seed, 473 P^r cent. Also thai 

 potash, soda, lime and magnesia were present in large 

 quantities. Hence, the process for restoring worn 

 out cotton lands to fertilitjtis evident. The inorganic 

 elements removed by continuous cropping must bo 

 restored to mother earth before she can again yield 

 her increase. 



A writer in the JVew England Farmer gives na 



