Proceedings of the Farmers' Club. 453 



To Decompose Bones. 

 Mr. C. S. Osgood, Wright City, Mo. — I have frequently seen 

 directions to break bones tolerably line with a hammer or axe, before 

 salting them down with ashes. I have found the breaking process 

 quite tedious, and there are but few farmers that can be induced to 

 save bones at all, let alone a process of reducing to useful shape, that 

 would cost more in time and labor than would buy as much bone 

 meal ready for use. For if all the pieces that fly in every direction 

 are run after and brought back, the " traveling fees " will run higher 

 than the constable's when he levied on the old woman's ducks. Hav- 

 ing a beef cow die suddenly of distemper, I dressed her, tried the 

 tallow, broke the bones to let out the marrow, boiled the carcass, and 

 fed the meat slowly to store hogs, with other food. I then packed 

 the bones, without further breaking, with first-rate hard wood ashes, 

 about filling a lime-cask, put on water gradually to moisten through, 

 and let them stand through one summer, adding water to keep damp. 

 I had sold my farm in the meantime, but surmising that my successor 

 would make no use of the bones, and wishing to learn the result of 

 my experiment, I shoveled them out upon the garden, and found the 

 experiment a perfect success, there being but few pieces not perfectly 

 decomposed. The big joints cut and looked very much like soft 

 cheese, so that I at first thought I must have made an oversight and 

 put in some chunks of fat beef with the bones. If I had no first- 

 rate ashes I would leach some to get lye to moisten with instead of 

 water. 



Gypsum — How does it Act? 



Mr. "W. T. Early, Charlottesville, Ya., writes : This is a vexed ques- 

 tion, which has long perplexed chemists and agriculturists. There 

 have been many theories upon the subject which I propose to 

 examine. It is said by a distinguished professor that it is food for 

 plants, or manure. This cannot be true, because generally, when 

 applied to land, about seventy pounds or a bushel to the acre, is 

 found to be sufficient for all purposes, and that over that amount is a 

 waste of material. • 



It is believed by some that it acts upon the soil mechanically. 

 This is obviously a mistake, as, everything else being equal, it acts in 

 the same manner upon all soils ; those which are light, loamy, stiff, 

 clayey, sandy or rock, being equally and in like degree affected by it. 

 And beside the quantity used, a bushel per acre is too small to have 

 any appreciable mechanical effect upon the soil. 



