44 



GARDENING FOR THE SOUTH. 



these, the most available are the ofiFal of slaughtered ani- 

 mals and their carcasses, hair, bristles, leather, refuse from 

 the tanners and shoemakers, woollen rags, and bones. All 

 these contain the elements required by growing plants in 

 a very concentrated state. The hair, bristles, &c., may 

 be applied directly to any crop. These matters are very 

 powerful, and a small quantity will suffice. Slaughter- 

 house offal, and the carcasses of any animals that may have 

 died, should be buried deeply in a pit, with absorbents 

 beneath, and covered with muck or loam. In a year it 

 will become a most valuable manure. 



Bones are an especially useful application to almost any 

 garden crop. Bones contain sixty-six parts of earthy mat- 

 ter, mostly phosphate of lime, and thirty-four parts of gel- 

 atine. Phosphate of lime, next to ammonia, is the most 

 necessary application to a soil, because the £rst element 

 exhausted. Gelatine is rich in nitrogen, so that in bones 

 are united the most desirable organic and inorganic ma- 

 nures. Applied whole, bones decompose too slowly to be 

 of much value, and would be greatly in the way of tillage 

 They may be broken small with a sledge-hammer or crow- 

 bar, in a large wooden mortar, lined at the bottom with a 

 thick iron plate. When beaten small, the fine dust can 

 be sifted out, and the remainder moistened and thrown up 

 in heaps, to ferment a few months. Bones can be dis- 

 solved by boiling them in strong lye, and dried, by mixing 

 with ashes or sand, can be applied broadcast or in the 

 drills. The best way to treat bones is to dissolve them in 

 sulphuric acid, forming superphosphate of lime. A car- 

 boy of sulphuric acid, costing about four dollars, at whole- 

 sale, in the cities, and containing one hundred and sixty 

 pounds, will dissolve about three hundred pounds of bones. 

 The bones should be put in a tub. A portion of the acid 



