FERTILIZERS. 67 



The cost of the raw material would be about as follows : 



4,000 pounds of bone, at $20 per ton $40 00 



90 bushels of unleached ashes, at 33 cents per bushel . . 30 00 

 600 pounds of lime 2 00 



$72 00 



Deducting one-tenth as waste in gases and evaporation, as $129 90 

 claimed by manufacturers of fertilizers . . . 12 9& 



$116 91 

 Deducting cost of raw material 72 00 



We have left, to pay for our labor '. . . . . $44 91 



At a meeting of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society > 

 Mr. William Hunt made an interesting statement of his- 

 method of making the phosphoric acid in bones available. 

 He bought the elements bone and ashes, which he used 

 freely on grapes and strawberries, and was much pleased 

 with the results. He bought from three to ten tons of 

 bones per year, and ashes when he could get them. He 

 found that it did not pay to use acids to reduce bones : the 

 same money in potash would produce better results. Last 

 year he used from 1,800 to 2,000 pounds of potash, which 

 cost 4J cents per pound. It comes in casks of about four 

 hundred pounds each, and is as hard as stone. He uses 

 four or five parts of bone to one of potash. The bone,, 

 which is ground, but not very fine, is spread in the barn 

 cellar. The potash is put, in large pieces, in a bag, and 

 there broken with a sledge-hammer, and put in a tight bar- 

 rel, into which was poured boiling water, and dissolved to 

 saturation. In handling the potash, care must be taken not 

 to get it on the clothes or person. It is then turned on 

 the bone, which sets up a great heat, evolving the nitrogen^ 

 to absorb which, plaster is used. It is allowed to remain 

 two or three weeks, and is turned over several times, and 



