474 [Assembly 



dant forage for stock. Its syrup (vezou) resembles tafia (rum) in 

 taste, &c. 



There is no more trouble in its cultivation than in Indian corn 

 and the millets. What we planted at Verrieres was ripe in Octo- 

 ber. The weight of the standing crop is 77,270 kilogrames per 

 hectare, while that of the beet crop is 49,300 kilogrames. 



MANURE AND ITS APPLICATION. 



President Pell — Mr. Chairman : The subject for to-day, manure 

 and its application, is the most important connected with our 

 glorious avocation ; every constituent of our bodies, and those 

 of our animals is derived immediately from plants; the vital 

 principle cannot generate 'one distinct element ; all inorganic con- 

 stituents of the organism of men and animals, may be considered 

 as manure. 



During the lives of men, animals and plants, the inorganic 

 components which are not required by their systems, are disen- 

 gaged in the shape of excrements. And after death, in course of 

 putrefaction, their carbon and nitrogen escape into the air in the 

 shape of carbonic acid gas and ammonia, leaving behind phosphate 

 of lime and sundry salts, which are admirable manures, and must 

 be returned to the soil to enable it to maintain its permanent fer- 

 tility. The animal derives its phosphate from the hay, straw and 

 cereals, that it feeds upon; sixteen pounds of bone, contain the 

 same quantity of phosphate ot lime, that two thousand pounds 

 of hay does ; and four pounds of bone, as much as two thousand 

 pounds of oats. If we place upon two acres of land, eighty 

 pounds of bone shavings, or dissolved bones, it will supply three 

 crops with sufficient phosphate of lime. I would prepare the 

 bones thus : to filty pounds of bone dust, add twenty-five pounds 

 of sulphuric acid, diluted with five parts of water ; when perfectly 

 dissolved, add one hundred and twenty parts of water, and 

 sprinkle this over the field. 



Strange as it may appear, I have found that boiled bones act 

 far more rajtidly than unboiled ; the reason I suppose to be, the 

 extraction of fdt, which probably has a tendency to impede the 

 rapid putrefaction of the gelatinous matter contained in them. 



