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Stte  RURAL  NEW-YORKER 
February  5,  1916. 
The  Threshing  Problem 
n  |  l  Threshes  cowpeas  and  soy  beans  I 
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THE  A.  W.  STRAUB  CO. 
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Phosphates :  Their  Origin  and  Use 
Part  III. 
Guaxo, — Another  source  of  phosphorus 
which  we  should  remember  is  guano  or 
bird  manure.  This  is  found  on  dry 
islands  or  on  the  mainland  in  rainless  re¬ 
gions.  chiefly  off  the  coast  of  South  Amer¬ 
ica,  in  the  Pacific  Ocean.  Sea  birds  con¬ 
gregate  by  the  thousands  on  these  islands. 
Their  food  is  chiefly  fish,  and  thus  the 
manure  is  very  rich  in  phosphorus.  As 
we  have  seen  all  boue  contains  that  sub¬ 
stance.  Here  again  is  the  same  theory 
of  condensation  worked  out.  The  tiny 
submarine  life  of  plant  or  fish  takes  the 
phosphorus  from  the  ocean  water. 
Larger  and  still  larger  forms'  of  fish  life 
live  upon  the  smaller  forms,  and  thus  the 
phosphorus  is  built  up  into  bone.  The 
birds  oat  the  fish  and  then  great  piles  of 
wastes  are  built  up  on  these  islands. 
They  contain  fish  bones  and  the  bodies  of 
dead  birds.  In  a  rainy  section  these 
piles  of  manure  and  waste  would  be 
washed  away  or  lost,  through  evapora¬ 
tion  or  decay,  but  iu  this  hot,  dry  region 
the  moisture  is  taken  out  and  the  mate¬ 
rial  simply  dries  up  and  is  preserved. 
In  some  cases  it  goes  slowly  into  a  con¬ 
dition  somewhat  like  a  soft  rock,  and 
makes  a  fine  fertilizer.  Remember  iu  all 
these  cases  the  foundation  principle  is  the 
game.  The  small  quantities  of  phosphor¬ 
us  scattered  through  the  soil  or  through 
the  ocean  water  are  condensed  by  plants 
and  fishes  or  animals  into  bone  and  then 
preserved  in  masses  for  our  use  as  fer¬ 
tilizer.  Some  of  these  guanos  contain 
nitrogen,  potash  and  phosphorus — all 
three — much  as  they  were  left  in  the  ma¬ 
nure.  In  the  lower  parts  of  these  masses 
of  guano  are  often  found  remaius  of  seals 
and  other  marine  animals,  well  pre¬ 
served.  Thus  it  is  probable  that  the 
islands  where  these  deposits  are  found 
were  once  places  of  refuge  for  these  ani¬ 
mals,  which  died  there  in  great  numbers. 
Later  the  islands  were  thrown  upward  by 
volcanic  upheaval  and  became  breeding 
places  for  the  sea  birds — the  remains  of 
these  sea  animals  being  slowly  changed  to 
phosphate  "deposits.”  In  some  cases  the 
ocean  waves  or  the  hot  moist  air  at  some 
seasons  have  washed  out  or  evaporated 
the  nitrogen  and  potash  from  these  de¬ 
posits — leaving  the  phosphorus,  as  a 
soft  rock  or  a  fine  powder. 
Boxes. — The  first  “artificial”  use  of 
phosphorus  as  a  fertilizer  was  evidently 
in  the  form  of  bone.  This  was  long  be¬ 
fore  the  chemists  knew  what  phosphorus 
was.  Farmers  found  that  bone,  especial¬ 
ly  when  burnt  or  crushed  fine,  made 
crops  grow  in  *a  special  and  peculiar 
way.  It  has,  of  course,  always  been 
known  that  manures  of  all  sorts  will 
benefit  the  land.  Many  centuries  ago  in 
England  it  was  a  part  of  the  agreement 
with  farm  tenants  that  the  sheep  and  cat¬ 
tle  must  be  herded  on  the  land  of  the  lord 
or  baron  at  night.  The  manure  thus  de¬ 
posited  was  considered  a  great  privilege. 
Here  we  see  on  a  smaller  scale  the  same 
idea  of  concentrating  plant  food  for  large 
areas  upon  smaller  ones.  From  the  first 
farmers  reasoued  that  manure  represent¬ 
ed  something  that  had  been  taken  away 
from  the  land,  and  they  could  easily  see 
that  when  they  put  it  back  they  restored 
what  the  laud  needed.  It  was  quite  nat¬ 
ural  that  these  farmers  should  come  to 
the  use  of  bone,  since  it  was  quite  easy 
to  see  that  the  boue  also  represented 
something  which  came  from  the  land  and 
was  needed  there  to  maintain  fertility. 
Old  Ideas. — No  one  seems  to  know 
just  when  bone  was  first  used.  One 
statement  is  that  a  fox-hunter  in  York¬ 
shire,  on  cleaning  out  his  kennels,  Used 
the  hones  which  the  dogs  had  gnawed  as 
fertilizer.  The  results  were  so  good  that 
he  kept  up  the  practice  and  the  habit 
spread !  Others  say  that  the  farmers 
near  a  bone  factory  where  knife  handles 
were  made  used  the  refuse  bones  with 
such  success  that  it  attracted  attention. 
Very  soon  bone-grinding  plants  were  es¬ 
tablished  and  bones  were  collected.  It 
was  found  that  crushed  bone  gave  good 
results  especially  on  grain  and  pastures. 
No  one  know  it  was  due  to  the  phosphorus 
in  the  bone.  The  general  idea  at  one 
time  was  that  the  benefit  was  due  to  an 
oil  found  in  the  boues.  It  was  often  no¬ 
ticed  that  when  a  good  dressing  of  fine 
bone  was  given  to  a  pasture  a  thick 
growth  of  white  clover  started  in.  Thus 
farmers  concluded  that  the  bone  con¬ 
tained  clover  seed.  As  we  know,  this 
idea  prevails  with  many  to-day  about 
ashes  or  other  fertilizers.  You  use  the 
fertilizer  and  clover  appears — therefore 
the  seed  must  have  been  in  the  fertilizer. 
It  was  hard  to  grasp  the  idea  that  the 
available  phosphorus  supplied  what  the 
clover  plants  needed,  aud  thus  induced 
them  to  start  and  grow. 
In  This  Country. — The  first  farmers 
in  New  England  were  driven  to  the  use  of 
phosphorus  without  knowing  why  they 
used  it.  They  found  the  Indians  using 
fish  in  the  corn  hills  and  burning  hou^s  in 
their  camp  fires — scattering  the  ashes  as 
a  fertilizer.  When  the  descendants  of 
these  early  settlers  went  to  the  Western 
prairies  they  found  rich  soil  containing 
abundant  phosphorus.  It  was  not  until 
50  years  of  grain  growing  and  stock  feed¬ 
ing  had  taken  much  available  phosphorus 
out  of  the  soil  that  those  Western  farm¬ 
ers  began  to  see  that  they  must  make  up 
for  what  they  have  taken  from  the  soil. 
From  the  first  the  Eastern  soils  needed 
available  phosphorus,  and  the  great  prob¬ 
lem  was  to  make  the  waste  boues  as  fine 
as  possible.  It  was  learned  long  ago 
that  phosphates  are  available  in  propor¬ 
tion  as  they  are  made  fine.  At  one  time 
in  England  it  was  thought  that  if  the 
bones  were  crushed  about  as  fine  as  mar¬ 
bles  they  would  give  good  results.  It  was 
found  that  this  would  not  answer,  and 
powerful  mills,  steam  and  sulphuric  acid 
have  all  been  brought  into  use  to  make 
fine  bone.  As  a  boy  the  writer  spent 
many  a  day  picking  up  bones  where  they 
could  be  found.  They  sold  to  dealers  at 
half  a  cent  a  pound  and  were  as  salable 
as  eggs  or  grain.  Some  of  the  best  farm¬ 
ers  bought  them  and  crushed  into  a  coarse 
powder.  One  small  plant  was  located  at 
a  little  water  power,  and  consisted  of  a 
fair-sized  trip-hammer  pounding  upon  a 
large  anvil.  The  hones  were  fed  in  un¬ 
der  this  hammer  and  smashed  into  splin¬ 
ters.  By  running  them  through  again 
and  again  they  were  made  reasonably 
fine,  and  when  used  with  wood  ashes  or 
manure  they  produced  fair  crops.  There 
was  a  general  complaint  that  such  bones 
were  slow  in  their  action,  much  more  so 
than  the  “superphosphates,”  which  were 
then  coming  into  use.  The  man  who  ran 
this  boue  plant  also  made  soft  soap,  and 
he  read  somewhere  that  a  good  quantity 
of  fat  for  his  soap  could  be  steamed  out 
of  the  bones.  So  he  put  in  a  small 
steamer  and  vat,  steaming  the  bones  un¬ 
der  pressure.  In  this  way  he  obtained  a 
good  quantity  of  grease  for  his  soap  and 
found  that  the  steamed  bones,  smashed  up 
more  completely  and  easily.  Then  it  ap¬ 
peared  to  farmers  that  the  steamed  bone 
gave  quicker  results  than  the  raw  bone. 
They  saw  that  it  did,  but  did  not  know 
the  reason,  which  was  that  the  fat  on  the 
bone  had  acted  in  the  soil  to  prevent  de¬ 
cay  and  thus  make  the  bone  available. 
So  let  us  take  up  next  some  of  the 
methods  of  handling  bone. 
(To  be  continued) 
Painting  an  Iron  Fence 
Will  you  tell  me  what  kind  of  paint 
to  use  on  an  iron  fence  around  a  ceme¬ 
tery  ?  D.  F. 
Gossville,  N.  H. 
First  coat  it  over  with  a  mixture  of 
red  lead  and  linseed  oil,  mixed  so  that 
the  paint  will  flow  on  easily.  As  the  red 
lead  will  settle,  the  paint  will  require 
stirring  while  being  used.  If  the  fence 
has  been  painted  and  is  rusty  and  scaly, 
remove  same  with  a  still"  wire  brush  be¬ 
fore  applying  the  red  lead.  For  the  sec¬ 
ond  coat  apply  the  best  grade  of  asphal- 
turn  paint.  Both  coats  of  paint  should 
be  flowed  on  and  not  rubbed  out,  so  that 
the  paint  will  work  into  all  of  the  joints 
and  crevices  where  moisture  is  liable  to 
get. 
C-aiaer:  "I  suppose  you  can  spell  all 
the  short  words,  Bobbie.”  Bobbie :  “I 
can  spell  a  lot  of  big  ones,  too.  I  can 
even  spell  words  of  four  cylinders.”— 
Boston  Transcript. 
