No. 144.] 527 



to drive off the gelatine, fatty matter, etc., and leave phosphate 

 of lime only, dissolving it before its application in sulphuric acid, 

 and should fertilize another similar piece of land with the same 

 amount of phosphate of lime taken from the rock as at the loca- 

 tion at Dover, N. J., or Crown Point, Lake Champlain, and dis- 

 solve this also in sulphuric acid, we should find that the portion 

 fertilized by the dissolved bones would yield a crop much larger 

 than that arising from the use of dissolved phosphate from the 

 rock. 



This gives rise to the qnestion : " Does matter by its entering 

 into animal and vegetable organisms, undergo any changes, which 

 are important for after progression, but which changes are not 

 discoverable by chemical test or microscopic investigation?" All 

 experiments seem to prove, that isometric compounds, although 

 chemically alike, so far as analysis is capable of discovering con- 

 ditions, really do differ in their adaptability for appropriation in 

 organic life, and thus the ingredients found in the blood or bone 

 of an animal, between the time of its leaving the original rock and 

 becoming blood or bone, may have occupied place in vegetable or 

 animal life a thousand times, at each of which assimilation, growth 

 and decay, it may have been more fully suited for its present ad- 

 vanced purposes, and thus the phosphate of lime and other con- 

 stituents of blood may differ in their applicability for re-appro- 

 priation, from the same materials in a less advanced state. We 

 all know, that, when a plant or animal decays, or is consumed in 

 any way, that its ultimates pass back, either to the soil or the at- 

 mosphere, and are re-united in some new organic form ; no one 

 particle isever put out of existence — and may not this be the cause 

 why many manures are to be found so much more effective than 

 others of similar composition ? 



All know that the ultimates contained in a green crop, when 

 applied to the soil from original sources, will produce no such 

 result, as is consequent upon the plowing under of a green crop. 



"We all know that night-soil, urine of animals, stable manure, 

 &c., produce effects in vegetablo growth, not to be arrived at by 

 the use of the same constituents, direct from the rocks — and is it 

 not possible, that our present improved plants, improved fruits 



