288 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



weight, they hold more phosphoric acid than the raw bones ; but 

 for ' rotting ' in the heap or for combination with ashes or potash 

 the raw ground bone must be used. 



" If you can collect whole bones at the price named in your 

 letter, (one dollar per hundred pounds,) and can pound them 

 up or break them coarsely, so as to pack them in a shallow box 

 with good unleached ashes, pound for pound, after the manner 

 described in my lecture, it will afford you the cheapest and best 

 fertilizer you ever experimented with. Make a box about a foot 

 and a half deep, and large enough to hold your bones and 

 ashes, and in a few weeks you will find them disintegrated and 

 ready for the field. If you can buy the steamed bones at |25 

 per ton, theyviire very cheap, and will pay to buy and make into 

 superphosphate. I have a field which has been under the exclu- 

 sive treatment with special fertilizers for four years with all the 

 different crops, and I think you will be interested in the results." 



Allow us here to remark that the writer received a very polite 

 invitation to visit the farm of Dr. Nichols, and has felt disap- 

 pointed, that he did not find time to do so. 



The doctor adds, in closing : — 



" I have analyzed the bone-meal made by the Com- 

 pany, and found it pure. I cannot say how honest they have 

 been since I made the examination. There is a vast a?nount of 

 rascality practised by the bone-grinders and the fertilizer-makers. 

 We must all work tog-ether to stop it; it can be cloned 



These last remarks bring us to a point which may be regarded 

 by many as the more difficult one to manage ; for the real, prac- 

 tical question with the farmer of the present day is not whether 

 he can afford to use superphosphate, but whether he can afford 

 to be cheated through buying any of the commercial fertilizers, 

 containing, as many of them do, from twenty to fifty per cent, 

 of worthless materials. 



In our humble judgment cultivators of the soil had better 

 far cease to purchase until some more sure guarantee against 

 fraud can be devised than the bare assertion of manufacturers 

 or vendors, or the certificates with which they flood the land. 



The temptation to fraudulent dealing, together with the facil- 

 ities afforded, is altogether too great to be resisted by persons 

 possessing a strong desire for greenbacks, coupled with a lack of 

 moral principle. 



