660 Transactions of the American Institute. 



of being annually scattered over wheat farms, to increase their fer- 

 tility ? At least two miles of this rock, which is very soft, and easily 

 pulverized, lie open in the boundless valley, through which flows a 

 large stream of water, for driving the grinding mills. It may be 

 that a company with a few thousands capital might find the manu- 

 facture and sale of this natural manure profitable to themselves, and 

 a great gain for wheat lands, I have often asked why such ground 

 material would not do artificially just that which naturally it does 

 for Onondaga wheat fields. 



Mr. F. D. Curtis. — Gentlemen should remember that only a few 

 elements in manures will ever pa}'^ a farmer for expensive handling 

 or distant transportation. Ammonia is of great value, so is phos- 

 phate of lime and nitrate. But when we speak of sulphate of lime 

 or plaster, if combined with heavy inert stuff, it will not pay to dig 

 and haul far. Pure quicklime, pure gypsum, and pure salt have a 

 certain value, which may be ascertained, as applications to land, and 

 a rock or marl which is believed to contain them may or may not be 

 a profitable manure according to the value of these elements when 

 pure. But the only precious things in fertilizers are ammonia, phos- 

 phorus, and potassa. 



Dr. Isaac P. Trimble. — I am glad of these pertinent remarks of 

 Mr, Curtis. We need nothing so much as trustworthy information 

 about fertilizers. The Secretary has a small package of fine bone 

 meal from the mills of Lister Brothers, near Newark, N. J., to which 

 I ask the attention of the Club. It is so fine that it acts at once; it 

 is, I believe, the quickest as well as the strongest application that can 

 be made to young or backward plants. 



Mr. D. B. Bruen. — I have known those Listers, father and sons, 

 for a generation, and I do not believe they adulterate. 



Mr. Eussell. — I should be only too' happy to have members of this 

 Club visit the Lister Brothers mill. They will see that we are 

 receiving and grinding up good raw bones from hotels and houses in 

 this city at the rate of thirty tons a day. 



The Chairman. — If there is anything in smell this powder has 

 strong recommendation, I hope this matter of pure and impure 

 bone will again come before us, and also that it will not escape the 

 scrutiny of this committee. If there is a fundamental material 

 interest in society it is right here. The farmers, above all other 

 information, want to know when they buy what purports to be 200 

 or 2,000 pounds of ground bone, not only that it has some fertilizing 



