The Farming of Cheshire. 
95 
their essential quality as manure, and is quite as well dispensed with), are 
not as good for the purpose of manure as the unboiled ones ; at all events, 
taking into account that 2 tons of the boiled bones can be had for the 
same sum as H ton of unboiled ones, I should prefer the former. 
" The price of good raw bones now is about hi. per ton, and boiled ones 
about 3/. 10,5. to 3^. 15s. : the quantity when land is poor, I generally re- 
commend, is of the boiled bones from 30 cwt. to 2 tons to the statute acre 
according to circumstances; but where the land is very thin of soil and 
much exhausted with the plough, I always recommend 2 tons, and nothing 
less is in my opinion an effectual dressing ; but where the land is tolerably 
good, and the principal object is to sweeten the herbage, I think from 
15 cwt. to a ton to the acre is sufficient, and I know an instance where 
even 8 cwt. to the acre produced surprising effects in improving the herb- 
age. Although I am a great advocate for draining, and am ready to admit 
that, generally speaking, it is the foundation of most other improvements ; 
yet 1 think it may be carried too far where bones are used upon permanent 
pastures or mowing, for I have invariably found them to answer best 
where the land is cool, and even moisture appears to be favourable to their 
operation, and I believe it is universally allowed that boned lands suffer 
much by a dry summer; I would therefore only lay the land sufficiently 
dry to carry stock, and to take away rushes and other aquatics where 
they exist to the detriment of the proper herbage. Before bones came 
into use in this county, the farmers made a point of selecting a hardy and 
inferior description of stock for their clay lands, farmers finding that large 
well-bred cows did not at all answer upon them ; but now they find that 
the best of stock find ample support, not only to supply the cheese-tub 
freely, but also to do justice to their lineage by retaining, if Yiot improving, 
their size and symmetry, so that the farmer has not only the advantage of 
making considerably more cheese, but also of making more money by his 
turn of stock. I think bones might be very extensively used, and with 
great advantage, upon clover roots. The usual practice when a piece of 
clay land has been tilled to a stand-still, and will answer no longer to the 
whip, is to clover it down, when nature makes, as it were, a last expiring 
effort by yielding a crop of clover, or clover and rye-grass, or whatever 
artificial grasses happen to be sown, which crop is then generally mown 
off, and this gives the finishing stroke to the miserable existence of the 
poor field ; it then becomes a dead letter for many years to come, an en- 
cumbrance to the tenant, an eyesore to the landlord, a subject of remark 
to the railway traveller, and thereby a disgrace to the county : but if a 
tolerable covering of bones, say from 20 to 25 cwt. to the acre, according 
to circumstances, were applied upon the clover, it would not only produce 
a good crop of artificial grasses, but it would also assist nature in clothing 
hei-self speedily with a fine herbage of those natural grasses peculiar to 
the soil, which only require the friendly aid of some good fertilizer to 
bring them into existence ; and if this plan were pursued, instead of the 
land lying, as it generally does, for many years, after the artificial grasses 
have disappeared, in a totally unproductive state, it would form a good 
turf of natural grasses immediately to succeed the artificial ones, and pre- 
sent a cheerful countenance as well as a profitable return to the farmer, 
without any check or cessation whatever after the arduous labours of the 
severe tillage. I think bones might also be most beneficially applied 
upon permanent mowing ground (of course I am speaking all the while of 
cTay soils), in which case the farm-yard manure might be taken for the 
tillage lands ; and if those were effectually and thoroughly drained, summer 
fallows might be dispensed with, and some good winter and spring feed 
provided for the stock in the way of green crops, a luxury with which I 
fear most of our dairy stocks are as seldom indulged in as the good people 
