No. 129] 333 



nitric and sulphuric acids were included. In these curious ex- 

 periments, even the salts of ammonia, charcoal, and other fertili- 

 zers, which have too long been neglected. * * * * While 

 I am at work on soils, the component parts of which I am ignor- 

 ant of, for want of a laboratory, I am forced to form trials that 

 take years to perform, in order to gain results that might be had 

 in a day." 



The first experiments with dissolved bones were made in 1841, 

 by Mr. Fleming, of Barrochau, who dissolved the bones in muri- 

 atic acid, and applied them to moss oats. 



[From the Journal of Agriculture, Ac, Edinburgh, July, 1851.] 



Bone Manure. — First of all, bone dust was found to be an 

 excellent fertilizer, and forthwith bone mills were erected, and 

 the osseous gatherings of towns and country were poured into 

 them, in order to eke out the refuse of the byre (cow shed.) 

 Nay, wide Europe was ransacked for this new and potent agent 

 of fertility; the fields of the Continent were robbed of their long 

 buried stores to grow the grain of England. The scenes of un- 

 forgotten strife, where the grass still grew rank and long, were 

 opened for the sake of their hidden treasures, and a "valley of 

 dry bones" would then have been prized like a golden mine. 

 Leipsic, Waterloo, and far Borodino; Eylau, Lutzen, and Fried- 

 land, and many other bloody fields of fight, were thus ransacked; 

 and not seldom did our wondering millers lift from amid the bone 

 heaps fragments of shivered swords and rusty breastplates. But 

 even the hundred battle fields of Napoleon failed at length to 

 yield an adequate supply. Bone mills began to stand idle, and 

 yet the ground clamored loudly for more. Then comes the 

 guano, and that becoming scarce, search is every where made for 

 something else. Soon, a rich though limited mine of manure 

 was discovered in -the beds of coprolites, which pass, like verdant 

 zones, across many parts of England. The farmer's eye first 

 rested reflectively on the superior luxuriance of these bands, and, 

 with the eagerness of the gold seeker, he dug into their depths, 

 to lay bare the cause. In those depths he found, strangely found, 

 nodules, the fossil dung of enormous lizards or crocodiles, which, 



