268 [Assembly 



pounds weight per acre are commonly taken off alluvial lands 

 per annum. All that is to be done is to add, say fifty-six pounds, 

 equal to about one bushel of phosphate of lime, to every crop. 

 It is not to be deemed an amendment of soil, but as a manure. 

 Guano and Poudrette contain in it considerable quantities. 



When we have a due share of moisture, this phosphate forces 

 vegetation rapidly. In very hot, dry weather a good deal of 

 guano is lost by evaporation. The animal matter of guano is 

 not a durable element of this manure, but the phosphate is good 

 for the following year. In bones this is different ; crushed 

 bones, or bone dust, are good for the first year's crop. Meadows 

 should be top-dressed with it. When dissolved in sulphuric 

 acid, one-half the amount of bone is wasted. We allow two 

 hundred pounds weight of crushed bone to an acre, and but one 

 hundred of the dissolved bone. Put a cask in the ground, put 

 in one hundred weight of bone, and sprinkle them witli water. 

 After twenty-four hours they begin to smell and bubble ; then 

 dilute ten pounds weight of vitriol in three or four times as 

 much water, and pouj' over the bones j stir them well, and they 

 will soon be reduced to a creamy state. Make a compost of 

 bones, mucl:, leaves, &c. Of this, seventy-five pounds of bone 

 in the compost answer well for one acre. The strongest effect 

 will apppear the first year, but it is good for thre« or four years 

 after. 



Chairman. — ^Where can the mineral phosporite be obtained? 



Dr. Antisell. — Professor Emmons has discovered a mine of it 

 near Crown Point, Lake Champlain. On analysis it is found to 

 contain ninety-two per cent of phosphate of lime, with salts and 

 fluate of lime. He says that there is enough of it there to serve 

 the whole United States for many years. There is a considerable 

 mass in Jersey, near the zinc mines, which contains about ninety- 

 three per cent of the phosphate. This phosphorite is readily 

 crushed to powder, almost by the pressure of a pen-knife blade. 

 The vein of it is said to be about three or four feet under the 

 surface, to be about eight feet wide and is traced about two and 

 a half miles in length. The transit from the mine to New-York 

 is by water, with the exception of some two miles and-a-half land 



