286 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



four per cent, hard coal and sand. The price $55 per ton ; 

 thirty-four per cent, is $18.70 — value $36.30 per ton, which is 

 probably much above its true value as a manure. It is made 

 up largely of refiners' burnt bone. 



" We have used to a considerable extent pure fine-ground 

 bone, which we buy at the mill in Rhode Island. With this 

 we mix an equal amount of wood-ashes. If the ashes are dry, 

 the mixture will need to be wet. It will take from one to two 

 weeks to prepare it for use. Mix on the floor — cut it over two 

 or three times with a shovel. Bone costs $48 per ton ; forty 

 bushels ashes $8 ; freight $4 — total cost $60, for two tons. A 

 better fertilizer man has never compounded. We seeded seven- 

 teen acres to grass in the fall of 1866, mostly on inverted sod, 

 using no other fertilizer but pure ground bone. The last piece 

 was seeded late in November. Did not come up till spring. 

 We cut two heavy crops last season from it. It looks well 

 now. Should not think much of bone alone on very dry in- 

 verted sod. 



" We have used large quantities of wood-ashes, in fact all 

 we can get, every year. We also use lime and salt, which we 

 consider invaluable on certain soils. Properly prepared, it is 

 a powerful fertilizer, and good for any crop. In gardens and 

 fields too rich in humus or mould-bearing vines, with little 

 fruit, in orchards troubled with borers, &c., it appears to change 

 the chemical condition of the soil and give new life to the inert 

 elements of fertility that are in the land. Three hundred pounds 

 lime, two bushels salt — mix together, dry slack under cover ; 

 sow on the surface in the fall ; cultivate in, if sown in the spring, 

 in order to incorporate it with the soil. If for potatoes, use a 

 little in the hill. From four to five hundred pounds of lime to 

 the acre is a fair dressing on any land. 



" From some unexplained cause plaster does not appear to 

 have the same effect upon all lands. It is condemned by some 

 and extolled by others, both sides being ignorant of the cause. 



" Plaster when used alone has no perceptible effect whatever 

 on my land. Our theory is that vegetation cannot convert to 

 its use crude plaster ; that it must be decomposed by some force 

 or action of the elements yet imperfectly understood. Potash 

 appears to have that effect. Soils deficient in those alkaline 

 elements are not adapted to plaster ; but when the soils are of 



