192 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



" Alas ! upon whom can the farmer depend ? If interest and 

 avarice confront him, when moving within the circle of those 

 who should be safe advisers and trusty friends, to whom can he 

 flee for counsel and protection ? " 



It is not alone in regard to the nature and methods of mak- 

 ing and applying fertilizers that farmers are led into error ; but 

 perhaps there is no subject upon which it is more important 

 that correct knowledge should be disseminated than this. One 

 of the best known and most widely circulated of our agricultural 

 journals not long since advised farmers to collect large quan- 

 tities of bones, reduce them to fragments by pounding, and 

 then dissolve them by pouring on sulphuric acid ; also the same 

 wise advice was given by several speakers at a meeting of the 

 New York Farmers' Club, not long since. Now, it would seem 

 that every intelligent person ought to know that raw unground 

 bones cannot be dissolved in sulphuric acid. Whoever recom- 

 mends this course, purposely misleads, or else is in ignorance 

 from never having tried the experiment. Fragments no larger 

 than a raisin, may remain in strong or dilute acid for months, 

 and not be perceptibly acted upon. They are only attacked 

 upon the surface when in contact with oil of vitroil, and a film 

 of insoluble sulphate of lime is formed which effectually arrests 

 further action. In order to dissolve bones and fit them for 

 plant nutriment, they must first be ground to fine powder, and 

 the finer the better, as the acid can then cut through the little 

 atoms and disintegrate the structure. We must not mislead or 

 be misled in this matter. If a farmer has a quantity of raw 

 bones which have been picked up, it is probable they cannot be 

 ground in any mill within his reach, and he cannot dissolve 

 them in acid. His best plan is to dissolve them by either pack- 

 ing in good wood ashes after the method which has been often 

 described, and which I presume is well understood, or burn 

 them to whiteness, and then have them ground in a plaster mill. 

 Bones piled in a heap with wood, will ignite and burn with 

 great fierceness. The calcined product is brittle and can easily 

 be ground, and the powder, dissolved in acid, forms an excel- 

 lent superphosphate. 



It seems to be necessary to state again and again, that in 

 order to obtain from bones the full fertilizing influence they are 

 capable of affording, they must be reduced to an impalpable 



