166 A PRACTICAL TREATISE 



earth per acre ; b)' which dressing, the crops between fallow 

 and fallow, excepting clover, appear to have been increased 

 one fifth in value. Others use 40 bushels of bones, broken 

 from two to three inches, in a compost with 5 loads -of farm- 

 yard manure, and a sufficient quantity of earth, the effect of 

 which has been felt on the wheat crop at the end of the four- 

 course system. Many also mix up dung, soot, rape-dust, and 

 the ashes from weeds and house fires, with the bones, by which 

 great heat and consequent fermentation is occasioned. 



The most general practice, however, is to form the compost 

 entirely of bones and yard muck, mixed, in various propor- 

 tions, with 



From 50 bushels of bones to 4 or 5 of dung. 

 20 do. 4 do. 



12 do. 8 do. 



This, if the heap be well covered, will no doubt decompose 

 the bones very rapidly; and one person states, "that he has 

 used as much as 35 hushels of bone-dust, per acre, without 

 manure, in the same field where he laid six loads of fold ma- 

 nure, and ten bushels of bone-dust; but the turnips on the 

 part manured with bone-dust alone were not so good as 

 those on the part manured with the compost and the succeed- 

 ing crops were still worse in comparison." 



As the great amount of bones now actually consumed as 

 manure, besides the quantities applied to other purposes, may 

 reasonably excite an apprehension that the still increasing 

 demand will soon exceed the supply and consequently raise 

 the price, a correspondent of the "Quarterly Journal of Agri- 

 culture," has suggested the following economical method of 

 employing them, which he has used for the last two years, 

 and by which he states that he has obtained heavy crops of 

 turnips. 



He forms a compost, as the manure for one imperial acre, 

 of 8 bushels of coarse bone-dust, with not less than double that 

 quantity of coal-ashes, which may be generally procured for 

 about 5s. per ton. The ashes should be carefully collected in 

 dry weather and placed under cover, in order that they may 

 be kept free from moisture ; or, if that be difficult, they mny 

 be strewed with a dusting of quicklime : after which they are 

 to be riddled as small as the dust itself, for otherwise, if sown 

 with a drilling-machine, they will not pass easily through the 

 hopper. The bones are then mixed with the ashes; the mass 



