210 BONES. 



plete vigorous action, stall-manure lacks nitrogen, 

 which it acquires by the addition of bone-dust, 

 guano, or rape-cake ; in bone-dust and guano, the 

 alkaline salts are wanting, and these are given to 

 them by the admixture of stable-muck, drainings, 

 ashes, etc. Bone-dust and rape-meal must pass into 

 decay before they can exercise a fertilizing action on 

 the soil ; but if drainings or some guano are added 

 to these substances, they will provide the plants with 

 nourishment until more is placed at their disposal 

 from the bone or oil-cake. The same result is 

 secured, if they are previously brought into a state 

 of progressive fermentation or putrefaction, or are 

 united with substances already putrefying (for ex- 

 ample, with stable-manure or drainings), which oper- 

 ate contagiously, and effect a quicker decomposi- 

 tion. 



A previous fermentation (incipient putrefaction) 

 of bone-dust, by suffering it to lie in heaps, which 

 are moistened with water or drainings, cannot, ac- 

 cordingly, be altogether rejected, as is so frequently 

 the case. Even if it is granted that some proportion 

 of the ammoniacal manuring substances so generat- 

 ed escape into the atmosphere, it may still be a ques- 

 tion, whether the advantage which the farmer gains 

 thereby, in making his manure more rapidly and 

 certainly efficacious, and in procuring in this way a 

 quicker return of capital, is not greater than the loss 

 which he sustains by the volatilization of some por- 

 tion of the elements in question. Let the farmer, in 



