136 
AMERICAN AGRICUETURIST. 
[Ai’kil, 
Walks and Talks on the Farm. 
No. 28. 
An agent of the Boston Milling and Manufac¬ 
turing Co. called on me to day in reference to 
their “Flour of Bone.”—It seems that they 
have invented a mill—designed originally I be¬ 
lieve for crushing quartz—which will reduce 
bones to a much finer condition than any other 
mill hitherto employed for this purpose. He 
showed me two samples of the bone dust, one 
about as fine as coarse bran, and the other as 
fine as ordinary wheat flour. I have seen cal¬ 
cined bones reduced nearly as fine, for the pur¬ 
pose of making a choice specimen of superphos¬ 
phate ; but never supposed it possible by any 
mechanical means to reduce unburnt bones to 
such an extreme state of subdivision. 
Since the agent was here, it has occurred to 
me that the coarse sample may contain an un¬ 
due proportion of the fleshy matter of the bones, 
obtained at the expense of the finer sample. 
But in this I may be mistaken, for I see from a 
pamphlet he left with me that Dr. Liebig, 
of Baltimore, found in the “Flour of Bone” 4j 
per cent, of ammonia, and 50 per cent, of phos¬ 
phate of lime. This would show that it is a 
pure sample of the best quality of bones, if the 
analysis be of a fiiir average sample of all sold. 
The agent, who is a very intelligent man, com¬ 
menced to explain why fine bones were better 
than coarse, but I thought this was a point on 
which nothing need be said. I told him I 
had such a high appreciation of their invention, 
and thought so much of fine bone dust, that I 
would take ten tons delivered at Rochester at 
$40 per ton. Two years ago I bought ten tons 
of coarse bone dust for $18 per ton, and I 
thought I was making a liberal offer now. But 
the price he said was $70 per ton in Boston ! 
Horticulturists who raise high priced plants 
and vegetables, or those who care more for the 
pleasure of raising good crops than for the 
profit, may perhaps be able to pay such a price 
for manure, but farmers, except in rare cases, 
cannot afford to do so. We must bring up our 
land by slower methods, such as raising clover, 
and feeding more stock. 
I would like to use more artificial manures. 
High as they are, I would not willingly give 
thent up. There is a fascination about them, 
that those who have never used them can not 
appreciate. They are so easily applied, and so 
quick in theh action, that to me they constitute 
one of the chief pleasures of farming. Agricul¬ 
ture is proverbially slow. In the majority of j 
cases you have to wait some years before }mu 
get the full benefit of any improvement. But 
with a good artificial manure 3'ou see the effect 
in a few days. It may be in Boston or New 
York to-day, and before snow flies you may 
have the whole of it in your barns or cellars in 
the shape of golden grain or big potatoes. But 
we cannot afford to pay too much for mere 
pleasure. We farm for a livelihood. It is 
pleasant to see a big crop, but if it costs more 
than it comes to, we shall soon get tired of it. 
IVIannfacturers would do well to bear this in 
mind. We want their manures. We will take 
all they can make. There is no limit to the de¬ 
mand. But they must be sold at such a price 
that their use will directly or indirectly afford a 
profit. We want them principally to give us a 
start in our efforts to bring up the fertility of 
the soil. We can afford to pay a little more for 
them, for this purpose, than they are actually 
worth, but if manufacturers consult their own 
interest, thej^ will sell at the lowest rates possible. 
When I told the ’Squire I had offered to pay 
$400 for ten tons of bone dust, he shut one eye 
and remarked internally: “You are a-bigger 
fool even than I thought j'ou were.” “ Give me 
plenty of barn-yard manure,” he said aloud, 
“ and you are welcome to all your bone dust 
and guano.” I am used to this kind of talk, and 
pay no attention to it. The fiict is, I think more 
of barn-yard manure than he does. The prin¬ 
cipal object I have in using artificial fertilizers 
is, to enable me to make more and better barn¬ 
yard manure.—The latter costs more than most 
people think. Ellwanger & Barry, who draw 
an immense quantity of stable manure from the 
city to use on their nursery land, tell me that 
they find that every load of well rotted manure, 
by the time it is spread on the land, costs them 
five dollars—and they certainly know how to 
get work done as cheaply as you and I can hope 
to do it.—Frost & Co., of the Genesee Valley 
Nurseries, say it costs them $3,000 a year for 
manure. Now what is a ton of well rotted ma¬ 
nure worth ? It contains, say: 
10 lbs. soluble pho.sphate of lime, worth at 6c. per Ib.. .60 
12 lbs. insoluble phosphate of lime, worth at 2o. per lb. .24 
15 lbs. polash. worth at 4c. per lb..60 
20 lbs. ammonia, worth at 12c. per ib. .. .2.40 
$3.84 
These are all the really valuable ingredients 
of a ton of manure. The carbonaceous matter 
has little manurial value, or if it had, it can be 
obtained on almost all farms at a nominal sum. 
Apply these figures to a ton of bone dust. It 
would contain, saj’': 
1000 lbs. insoluble phosphate, at 2c.$20.00 
90 lbs. ammonia, at 12c. 10.80 
$30.80 
The manufacturers of the “ Flour of Bone ” 
may claim that, owing to its extreme fineness, 
the phosphates soon become soluble in the soil, 
and should be estimated at 6c. instead of 2c. per 
lb. Were this the case, a ton would be worth 
$70 instead of $30. But bone phosphate is not 
soluble; and how far this extreme fineness, by 
accelerating decomposition, favors solubility— 
or perhaps more correctly speaking, availability 
—is a matter yet to be tested. I have known 
mineral phosphate ground vere fine, but they 
have little more immediate effect than so mucli 
sand. But dissolve them in acid, and they make 
an excellent manure. All things considered, I 
think my off-hand offer of $40 per ton is about 
the fair thing. It may prove to be worth more 
—that is to say, the ingredients may be more 
readily available to plants—but this is a matter 
which must be tested in the field. I have 
estimated it liberally so far as chemistry throws 
light on the subject. 
I am inclined to think the best way to use 
bone dust is, to compost it with barn-j^ard ma¬ 
nure. In “piling” the manure in the spring, 
put a layer of manure on the ground six or eight 
inches thick, and then scatter a little bone dust 
over it, say at the rate of a bushel to what will 
make a ton of manure whep well rotted. Then 
throw up another layer of dung, and scatter 
another bushel of bone dust over it, and tlien 
another layer of manure, and so on, until the 
heap is finished. Let it be turned over in 
August, and by the latter part of September, 
after you have got in your winter wheat, it will 
be in splendid condition for applj'ing to grass 
laud. There is no better top-dressing than this 
for permanent meadows; or if you intend to 
break up the meadow the following spring for 
corn, no better system can be adopted. 
The way I pile my manure is, to throw up 
directly on to the heap all the manure that is 
near it, and for that which is too far off to be 
handled readily in this way, I use a one-horse 
cart, or an ox cart with a yoke of cattle. In 
fact, I use both, as in this way you can keep two 
men loading the cart all the time. Three men 
and two carts will soon pile up a big heap 
of manure. Drawing the manure in a cart on 
to the top of the heap in this wajq consolidates 
it and prevents all danger from too rapid fer¬ 
mentation. Carts are better than wagons, be¬ 
cause they are not only handier, but the manure 
can be dumped.—I piled my manure in this way 
last spring, but did not use it in the fall. I am 
now drawing it out on to a corn stubble for 
potatoes. I draw it while the ground is frozen. 
I do not think it is usually desirable to plant 
potatoes after corn, but this is an orchard of 
apple trees just coming into bearing, and I 
want to take two hoed crops in succession, and 
manure the land at the same time for the benefit 
of the trees. 
I know that there is a general impression that 
manure increases the rot in potatoes, but if it is 
thoroughly decomposed, I have no fears on that 
score. I never knew artificial manures to in¬ 
crease the rot. In fact, in an experiment I made 
some years ago on a warm sandy soil, where I 
had eight or ten plots dressed with different fer¬ 
tilizers, the plot which suffered most from the 
disease was that where no manure of any kind 
was used. I think manure is usually more 
needed, and will pay better, on potatoes than on 
almost any other crop. We may just as well 
raise three hundred bushels per acre as one 
hundred. Rich, warm, dry soil; early planting; 
a good variety; and thorough cultivation; these 
are all that is needed. 
In this section, potatoes are said to do best on 
a clover sod turned over just previous to plant¬ 
ing. The usual way is, to plant whole potatoes 
in hills three feet apart. Planting in hills is less 
labor than planting in drills, and you can use 
the cultivator both ways, and thus keep the land 
clean and mellow with little hand hoeing. It is 
also less labor to dig them. On the other hand, 
I think there can be no doubt that planting in 
drills gives the largest yield, and if the cultivator 
is used as soon as the rows can be distinguished, 
and is used once a week as loug'as there is no 
danger of disturbing the young tubers, the land 
can be kept clean with very little hand hoeing. 
The fact is, we must give up hand hoeing. A 
good steel-toothed cultivator, with a strong, 
steady horse, and a careful driver, is Avorth a 
dozen hand hoes among either corn or potatoes. 
I dislike to see a man puttering round a hill of 
corn with a hoe, going through a set of motions 
that have been handed down from the days be¬ 
fore cultivators were invented. The}'- may have 
been useful then, but are noAV entirely unneces¬ 
sary. There is Avork enough to be done on a 
farm Avilhout Avasting time in such a tedious 
performance. Let the laud be Avell ploAved, 
and the surface be harroAved and rolled, until it 
is as melloAV as a garden before planting, and 
little hand hoeing will be needed. 
I think an improvement could be made in the 
form of our cultivators. If the outside tooth, 
that runs nearest the hill, had a straight steel 
blade Avlth a knife at the bottom turned inside, 
and a little backAvards, so as to cut off the weeds, 
the cultiA’-ator could be run within an inch of 
the young corn without disturbing it, or throw¬ 
ing up any dirt. Such horse hoes or “ scuffles” 
are used in England among the roAvs of turnips, 
and can be guided much straighter than any¬ 
thing we have. With an ordinary cultivator 
tooth, or even Avith the inverted mould-board on 
