FERTILIZERS. 
265 
asmuch as sulphuric acid itself is a fertilizer. More or less than one half of acid to bone may 
be used, according to the views of the experimenter ; if less, the action of the undissolved bone 
will be prolonged. The mixture may stand for many days. The plan to be pursued will 
now be varied according to the intention of the farmer : if it is designed to be drilled in, it 
will require the addition of fine peat, or light friable soil, when it may be laid up and turned 
several times in the course of seven or eight weeks. During this time the bones heat and dry 
up, so as to be ready for the drill. If, on the contrary, it is designed to use the mixture in a 
liquid state, from fifty to one hundred times more water must be added, in the place of the 
porous earth or peat, when, after complete solution, it may be distributed over the field, in a 
water cart. Still more water should be used, provided the application is to be upon young 
and slender grass of meadows, or young wheat and other cereals. The objection to the last 
mode is its trouble, for, after all, there are many farmers who are deterred more from improve¬ 
ments of this kind, for the trouble it gives them ; there is nothing so desirable with them as 
the old way of doing things, for which they are prepared. The solution is the most perfect 
w r ay of applying bone manure. When the effects of this mode of application are compared 
with guano, it is found that two and a half bushels are equal in effect to two hundred weight 
of Peruvian guano. See Johnston’s Contributions to Scientific Agriculture, page 43. Prof. 
Johnston also gives a comparative result of the use of superphosphate of lime upon turnips, 
page 46. 
No dressing gave. 
3j cwt. of Peruvian guano, .. 
.... 40f 
4 cwt. rape dust,. 
6{ cwt. of superphosphate, ... 
.... .531 
I believe it unnecessary to proceed farther with a statement of the value of bone in agricul¬ 
ture, as the subject has already been treated of: it is one of considerable importance now, and 
will become still more so, in the progress of agriculture in this country. Correct views are 
beginning to be entertained, in regard to a productive husbandry. It is already found, in some 
quarters, that high culture gives the most profitable returns for capital invested in agriculture. 
One suggestion may be thrown out here ; do not the pasture lands, which have been devoted 
to sheep and dairy farming, require more attention than they have hitherto received I If the 
amount of butter and cheese, or of wool, is estimated fairly, it will be found that much nitro¬ 
genous, as well as inorganic matter, has been removed from pasture lands, in the course of 
twenty or twenty-five years. Pastures which were capable of keeping 5 or 600 sheep, have, 
in some instances, so far deteriorated in New-England, that only about one half as many can 
now be kept. This result must undoubtedly be owing to the phosphates which have been re^ 
moved in the grass. In order, therefore, to bring them back to their original fertility, bone 
dust, or the mineral phosphates, are required : no other substance can supply its place. 
Farmers, however, in this country, scarcely think of renovating their pasture lands by the di- 
[Agricultural Report — Vol. iii.] 34 
