322 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



first into the tub and moisten them with water, and afterwards add the 

 diluted acid sufficient to dissolve the mass. Instead of using acid strong 

 enoug-h to dissolve the bones at once, it would be better, after the mass is 

 saturated with the acid, to put it into a pile composted with loam and fine 

 manure, where the decomposition of the bones would be completed. 



Salt and Lime Mixture. 

 Prof. Mapes. — As we are constantly asked how to prepare the salt and 

 lime mixture, I will give my mode of preparing it: 



PREPARATION OF THE MIXTURE. 



Dissolve one bushel of salt in as little water as possible, and as cold 

 water will dissolve more salt than hot water, it should be preferred. With 

 this, slake three bushels of caustic shell lime hot from the kiln; all the salt 

 water will not be taken up by the lime at the first application. The mass 

 may be turned over the next day, however, and the remainder then added. 

 It should be turned over frequently for a few days, so as to permit every 

 particle to come in contact with the atmosphere. The chlorine of the salt 

 combines with the lime, forming chloride of lime, and setting free the soda, 

 which in turn takes carbonic acid from the atmosphere and becomes car- 

 bonate of soda. Thus commencing with lime and salt, we have as a result, 

 chloride of lime and carbonate of soda, four bushels of which thoroughly 

 mixed with a cord of swamp muck, woods earth, or other organic matter, 

 will disintegrate it to a fine powder in from thirty to ninety days. This 

 lime and salt mixture is an admirable top dressing for grass and grain 

 crops, and if sufficiently old for all the necessary chemical changes to have 

 occurred before use, has none of the immediate effects of salt. When 

 placed around peach trees, it prevents the aggression of the peach worm, 

 and from its peculiar hygrometric powers, ameliorates drought. We have 

 known clover-sick land to be restored by its use. It renders clays less 

 plastic; slight quantities may be used in the hog-pen with benefit, correct- 

 ing that difficulty with hog-pen manure so well known to gardeners, of 

 rendering the whole brassica tribe subject to arabury, or fingers and toes. 

 It may also be used in small quantities for underlaying the bedding of ani- 

 mals in stables. 



Sawdust, spent tan, and other substances difficult to be decomposed, are 

 rapidly torn apart by the use of this mixture. Leather chips, which refuse 

 to yield to all other means of practical decomposition, are rapidly robbed 

 of their tannic acid and decomposed as readily as raw hide. In many 

 districts of the country, the use of lime has been too extensive, and the 

 lands bake, crack and puddle during rain storms, so as to become nearly 

 useless. These may all be restored by subsoil plowing and top dressings 

 of salt, as before recommended. 



Silkworm Eggs. 



Mrs. Celia Abbott, of Tedrow, Fulton county, Ohio, is anxious to begin 

 the silk business, but, like many others of the same disposition, does not 

 know where to get the seed, and writes with a faint hope that some member 

 of the Club can give her the information. 



