MODERN HIGH FARMING. 19 



yet few persons are taking the pains to examine into the causes of 

 this diminution, which will become more and more formidable un- 

 less proper remedies are discovered and applied." 



Despite this warning note, it was not until after the commence 

 ment of the present century that the English farmers began to use 

 crushed bones as a manure, and even then they did so in blind ig- 

 norance of the principles to which they owed their virtues, as is 

 clearly shown by an article published by one of the scientific papers 

 of that day 1830 in which the writer says : 



"We need take into no account the earthy matters or phosphate 

 of lime contained in the bones, because, as it is indestructible and 

 insoluble it cannot serve as a manure, even though it is placed in a 

 damp soil with a combination of circumstances analytically stronger 

 than any of the processes known to organic chemistry." 



A subsequent writer upon the same subject declares that "bones, 

 after having undergone a certain process of natural fermentation, 

 contain no more than two per cent, of gelatine, and as they derive 

 their fertilizing power from this substance only, they may be con- 

 sidered as having no value as manure." 



That such opinions as these should have prevailed only fifty years 

 ago seems to us all the more preposterous, because of the gigantic 

 strides which we have made since then, and because of the singular 

 fact, that even the Chinese were better informed than our grand- 

 fathers, inasmuch as they knew that the fertilizer was a mineral 

 principle, and for many centuries have used burnt bones as manures. 



Despite the unflagging researches of the best men of the time, it 

 was not until the year 1843, that the Duke of Richmond, after an 

 exhaustive series of experiments upon the soil, with both fresh and 

 degelatiuized bones, came to the conclusion that they owed their 

 value, not to gelatine or fatty matters, but to their large percentage of 

 phosphoric acid ! The spark thus emitted soon spread into a flame, 

 and a conclusive experiment shortly after published by the illus- 

 trious Boussingault, set all uncertainty at rest forever. 



Numerous species of vegetables were planted in a soil rich in as 

 similable nitrogen, and absolutely devoid of any trace of phosphoric 



