No. 129. j -417 



society, has taken a great deal of pain with the subject ; Ue has 

 had and analyzed specimens of the manufactured superphos- 

 phate, and has found tliat while it is dreadfully limed and in a 

 very favorable state for drilling, it is not a bi-phosphate at all. 

 He shows that properly prepared superphosphate of lime, that is, 

 dissolved bones, costs £1, ($35) a ton and a quarter ; and these 

 contain phosphates 1 ,120 pounds, ammonia 89 pounds. A farmer 

 who farms high, and who has, on all practical points of routine, 

 a very sound and correct judgment, would dissolve his own 

 bones. He first spreads a layer of ashes on a lime and sand 

 floor, then pours out his bones on this, and pours the acid on this 

 mass. Never could a more pasty substance be created. The 

 ashes take up the acid to their different alkalies, the carbonic 

 acid bubbled up, and the eifect was that the decomposed and diS" 

 turbed ashes so mixed with the bones that the whole looked like 

 a pulpy, creamy substance, eminently fit for a manure for the 

 turnips; but it really was not. Beyond converting the lime, 

 soda and pot ashes into sulphates, it did very little to the mass, 

 and kept the bones in a very great measure utterly untouched. 

 But though it is perhaps seldom that so gross an instance of mis- 

 management takes place, yet how often does the farmer perpe- 

 trate chemical blunders. They will mix ashes and even lime to 

 dry the dissolved bones, and think that in counteracting the free 

 acid they are saving the iron of their drill implements; while 

 they are in reality counteracting the acid and undoing their work. 

 The mass (of dissolved bones,) must be dried by something. If 

 soil is used, it will at least take up some of the acid ; nay, even 

 saw-dust or decayed wood will do the same ; so, if it be applied 

 in any state, excepting by the liquid manure drill, we shall find 

 some sort of vehicle necessary to enable the farmer to lay it on, 

 and it is difficult to obtain any which will not take up more or 

 less of the acid. For ordinary purposes, we have never met 

 with any thing equal to the refuse of decayed stick h^aps. (Nor 

 I, who have found its value as a part of manure these fifty years 

 past.) It is usual for all farmers to take the hedge clippings, 

 &c., and cart them to an out of the way somewhere. These 

 decay, and leave a friable absorbent, carbonized mass behind. 

 Now, nothing is better than this to mix with the dissolved bones 

 [Assembly, No. 129.] 27 



