BONE MANURE. 
IS] 
BONE MANURE. 
The three first essentials of oratory, as defined by 
Demosthenes, were action—action—action. With 
no greater limitation to l\s definition than was de¬ 
signed by this celebrated master, we may say, that 
the first requisite for successful farming is manure; 
the second is manure; the third is manure. With 
these existing naturally in soils, or artificially sup¬ 
plied, everything can be done; without them, no¬ 
thing. The importance of the subject is my apology 
for the frequent and urgent calls upon the readers of 
the Agriculturist for providing this essential ground¬ 
work of the farmer. I shall confine myself in the 
present article almost exclusively to illustrating the 
effects of the application of bones to poor, clay, pas¬ 
ture lands, as they are detailed in England, and espe¬ 
cially in a recent article on the subject, in the Jour¬ 
nal of the Royal Agricultural Society, by William 
Palin. 
He says, “ Perhaps there is no county in England 
where the pasture lands, particularly the poorer soils, 
have been so much improved during the last twelve 
years, as in Cheshire (the best dairy county of the 
kingdom); and this principally by the application of 
bone dust. This extraordinary manure has a pecu¬ 
liar effect upon the poor clay land pastures ;- for on 
the application of boiled bones, a sudden change 
takes place in the appearance of the fields, and instead 
of the carnation-leaved or pink grass, which so much 
abounds in this kind of land, luxuriant herbage pre¬ 
sents itself, consisting of red and white clover, trefoil, 
and other grasses, of which the cattle are so fond 
that they eat up almost everything before them; even 
rushes and thistles are very much weakened, and 
eventually reduced, by being constantly eaten off by 
the stock, after the pastures have been bone-dusted.” 
Again, through a correspondent, he says, “ In the 
winter of 1836, I laid upon a field of 11 acres one 
ton of boiled bones, crushed small, to the statute 
acre; the field had not been plowed for a great many 
years, and produced a coarse, bad grass, which 1 
could only get eaten down during the winter or spring. 
In 1837 I sowed the field, and had a very good crop, 
with much red and white clover. In 1838 I had a 
most extraordinary crop; and perhaps the most extra¬ 
ordinary thing w T as, that it was an entire mass of 
wild red clover. I never saw a field of common 
clover a fuller crop. I continued to mow it for three 
years loijger, and had fair crops, but not very heavy 
ones. The field was not then under-drained.” 
Another correspondent says, “ I have known many 
instances where an outlay of £7 or £8 ($35 to $40) 
per acre for bones had been made, the annual value 
Lad been increased 300 per cent. ; and although a 
considerable proportion of the clover and trefoil may 
disappear after 8 or 10 years, yet an excellent herb¬ 
age of permanent grasses remains, very superior to 
what the land originally produced; and, in my opi¬ 
nion, clay land once well boned will never again 
produce a bad herbage, if kept in pasture. I have 
known many instances where lands which had been 
boned upwards of 15 years still retained a considera¬ 
ble proportion of trefoil and clover. Before bones 
were introduced into the county, farmers made a 
point of selecting a hardy and inferior description of 
stock for their clay lands, observing that large well- 
bred cows did not at all answer on them ; but they now 
find that the best of stock obtain ample support, not 
only to supply the cheese tub, but also to do justice 
to their lineage, by retaining, if not improving, their 
size and symmetry. 1 have paid nearly £1 0,000 
(near $50,000) for this manure, and the result has in 
every instance been most satisfactory. I have known 
many a poor, honest, but half broken-hearted man, 
raised from poverty to comparative independence; 
and many a sinking family saved from inevitable 5 
ruin, by the help of this wonderful manure. Un¬ 
questionably bones act in a very peculiar manner on 
our Cheshire clay soils, when applied to grass lands, 
which no doubt arises from the circumstance of our 
soil containing either less of that matter which coun¬ 
teracts their effects, or possessing in an extraordinary 
degree those qualities which are favorable, if not 
essential to their operation.” The rationale of all 
this is, that the soil is deficient in the materials afford¬ 
ed by bones, which are all of the first importance for 
making the greatest quantity and best quality of 
grass. 
A Lancashire agriculturist writes, “ Cheshire, it 
is well known, is a great cheese-making county, and 
within the last 20 years a vast extent of its pastures 
have undergone an almost inconceivable amelioration 
from the application of bone manure. In the year 
1838 I inspected a farm of tenacious soil, on which 
£250 (upwards of $1200) had been expended in 
bones for the pasture land. At that time, in August, 
though no stock had been on them during the sum¬ 
mer, the herbage on several fields was so scanty, 
that 20 stones of hay (280 lbs.) could hardly be got 
from them. The bones used were boiled, that is, 
stewed in a digester at a high heat for 30 or 40 hours, 
in w T hich process a large proportion of the gelatinous 
and oily matters are extracted. The land had been 
from time immemorial extremely poor. The stock 
of cows was only seven for a farm of 98 acres. In 
1842 the cow stock had been increased to 24, and in 
the autumn of that year there was a great excess of 
feed, so that additional stock had to be added to con¬ 
sume it.” It may be added, that in this case, as in 
most of the details of farm management given to the 
public, there is a lack of precision in details , and spe¬ 
cific, accurate increase noted, which leaves the exact 
amount of improvement entirely to the conjecture of 
the reader. We must conclude, in the experiment 
above given, that only a small part of the above 98 
acres was appropriated to the stock. 
Mr. Stietch, an excellent farmer, estimates from 
his own experience, that a first application of one ton 
of bone manure to an acre of pasture land, will, in 
many cases, make it of three times its value for pro¬ 
ductiveness. An extensive observer says he never 
heard of a single failure of bone dust in that part of 
the county. On sterile clays, ill covered even with 
the least nutrition of vegetation, bone manure soon 
effects a decided change. The hypnum tribes, or 
mosses, and the cavex pa.nicea, or pink grass, soon 
disappear, and a fine rich sw T ard of the noblest grasses 
to be seen on the best grass lands takes their place. 
A piece of land, which, previous to being bone-dusted, 
scarcely grew any other plant than the cavex, is now 
a beautiful pasture of trifolium pratense, or peren¬ 
nial red clover; cow grass, or trifolium medium , 
perennial; trefoil or trefolium procambus. 
On many farms, bones do not so much increase 
the quantity as the quality of the food grown ; and a 
greater quantity of cheese is frequently produced from 
