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pra-ed witli tliat resulting from the chlor-apatite rock which has 

 not before found a place in organic life. Thus the phosphate 

 rocks of Estramadura, that of Dover in New-Jersey and else- 

 where, noth withstanding the fact that they are composed of phos- 

 phoric acid and lime, and in the same relative proportions as in 

 the phosphate from the bone, will not fertilize plants of the higher 

 class, nor will they even after treatment with sulphuric acid . Thus, 

 notwithstanding the fact that all the phosphate of lime found in 

 the bones of animals and elsewhere, came originally from the rock, 

 still, before it attained its greatest value for agricultural purposes, 

 it must have passed through that chain of progression through 

 which all the primaries have passed through before reaching the 

 higher forms of organic life. 



Suppose an acre of soil to be fertilized by a thousand pounds 

 of bullock's blood dissolved in ten thousand gallons of water, and 

 another acre to be fertilized by a synthetical representation of 

 this blood taken from more original sources. Thus, let the potash 

 be taken from the feldspar rock, the phosphate of lime from the 

 apatite rock, and each primary from an original source, and in 

 the precise quantities in which analysis proves they exist in blood. 

 Divide them through an equal amount of water, and the acre 

 thus treated will nx)t grow as progressed a class of plants as would 

 be furnished by the blood; and simply because the primaries 

 themselves are not progressed. 



Every farmer knows, or may know, that if his soil is deficient 

 of phosphate of lime in some available form, so that the crops 

 cannot furnish it to the cow, that she will have the propensity to 

 gnaw bones wherever she can find them; and that if the milk is 

 deficient in phosphates, the bones of the calf will not have suf- 

 ficient strength to sustain it; that by feeding the cow small quan- 

 tities of bone-dust, the difficulty may be remedied. But does he 

 believe that the powdered phosphatic rock fed to the cow would 

 produce any such result 1 Or would it pass off with .the fceces 

 without being assimilated ] Does any practical agriculturist 

 believe that ground granite or feldspar (the latter containing fifteen 

 per cent of potash) will benefit the growing crop as much as wood 

 ashes'? So great is the difference, that even the ashes from a 

 higher class of plants will furnish potash superior to that from a 



