86 MAINE AGRICULTURAL. EXPERIMENT STATION. IQOI. 



is of little value on any soil unless the land is well drained and of 

 open texture. Both air and moisture are essential to the fer- 

 menting of bone. According to Storer, "bone meal would doubt- 

 less answer a good purpose on land newly broken up, and rich 

 in decomposing organic matters, provided the land was neither 

 too stiff nor too dry. So, too, when other conditions are favor- 

 able, bone meal will be likely to do better on land full of refuse 

 from a previous crop than on land that has been closely cropped. 

 In New England, it was recognized long ago, by practical men r 

 that bone meal should not be applied to dry soils. It is esteemed 

 in this region, however, for light soils that are fairly moist." 



STEAMED BONE. 



For the purpose of feeding, raw bones are undoubtedly supe- 

 rior to steamed because, of their higher content of ossein. 

 Recent experiments seem to show that in temperate climates 

 lightlv steamed bone, even though it may contain two or three 

 per cent less of nitrogen than raw bone, is of greater fer- 

 tilizing value than raw bone meal. When bones are placed 

 m a closed boiler and are submitted to steam pressure, 

 the bone becomes not only so friable that it can be readily and 

 cheaply ground, but the chemical character of the ossein left in 

 it appears to be changed. Meal thus made decomposes readily 

 in the earth and according to recent experiments in Germany acts 

 as a quicker and more powerful manure than meal from raw 

 bones. In the manufacture of glue, bone is sometimes treated 

 for a long time with steam at high pressure and thus loses the 

 larger part of its ossein. This bone may carry less than one per 

 cent of nitrogen and approaches bone ash in composition and 

 fertilizing value. The lightly steamed bone offered in the 

 market is probably a better fertilizer for most Maine crops and 

 soils than raw bone meal of equal fineness. 



Bone meal is by many highly regarded because it is a 

 slow acting fertilizer, and a single application will last for sev- 

 eral years. In present practice slow acting fertilizers are not 

 held in as much repute as formerly. The teaching of Voelcker 

 on this point is coming to be more and more followed. "Greater 

 permancy is no recommendation whatever, for the primary use 

 of all manures is to enable us to grow not scanty but heavy 



