1849. 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
115 
—He employed an Englishman to farm it for him. I men- j 
tion this matter, because at that time it would have | 
been doubtful whether any of “ our free and intelligent j 
fellow citizens,” could have been induced to stoop so 
low as to cart dry bones; but be that as it may, the 
course pursued by these persons—landlord and tenant— 
was to haul on bones of all kinds, principally however, 
ground bones and knuckle joints. I am sorry I cannot 
give you the quantity they put to the acre; but as I on¬ 
ly wish to convince the skeptical, that there is virtue 
even in dry bones, it is not of so much importance. 
Suffice it then to say they were put on liberally. 
When it was purchased by Mr. W., it would have 
been impossible for any person to have made a respect¬ 
able living from it, even had it been given to them free 
of rent; but when lie sold it, some ten years afterwards, 
it was decidedly one of the most productive farms in the 
neighborhood. From having been so poor that no other 
grass than red clover would grow on it, and not over 
ten bushels of corn could be produced to the acre, it 
was, in the short space of time mentioned, so much im¬ 
proved in fertility, that from one and a-half to two tons 
of timothy hay, or fifty or sixty bushels of corn could 
be raised to the acre, one season with another. After 
it passed from the possession of Mr. W., it went through 
the hands of various persons, either as owners or ten¬ 
ants, every one of whom pursued the skinning- process. 
It was cropped and re-cropped, much hauled off and 
but little hauled on, and farmed without any regard to 
maintaining its fertility; but notwithstanding all this, it 
still, after fifteen years of constant skinning, maintains 
the characier of being a most productive and valuable 
farm. 
After Mr. W. sold this, he purchased another just 
as poor as the one mentioned; with this difference how¬ 
ever, the latter one was level, cold and clayey. Ke 
pursued the same course with the latter that he had 
heretofore done with the former;—and the result was 
precisely the same. After a few years cultivation, in 
this manner, the improvement was so apparent, and his 
crops were so luxuriant, that our old-fashioned, plod¬ 
ding farmers were compelled to admit, that, in this in¬ 
stance at least, bones had proved a most powerful fer¬ 
tilizer. 
I might here rest my case and claim a verdict in my 
favor; but I have, in my mind’s eye, one more which 
is perhaps as conclusive as either of the others. 
Some fifteen years since, a gentleman purchased a 
farm very much of the character of those mentioned 
above. He was desirous of having it brought to a 
higher degree of fertility. To do this, he began to haul 
manure from the city of Philadelphia, a distance of 
some ten miles; but he found the cost, wear and tear, 
and destruction of horse flesh, were more than he bar¬ 
gained for, and accordingly he soon abandoned it. Just 
at that time, he engaged the scraps from a button fac¬ 
tory'—these are the pieces of bone after the button has 
been sawed out—he spread them on his land at the rate, 
I think, of seventy or eighty bushels per acre; and now 
there are few farms more productive than his, made so 
almost solely by the use of this manure. 
I might go on for a week, instancing cases wherein 
this same result has followed the same course, just as 
invariably as the sun traces its course through the hea¬ 
vens; but it would exhaust your patience; nevertheless, 
at the risk of doing so, I cannot refrain from giving you 
my own experience in the matter. 
Four years since, I put in some wheat, part with 
thirty bushels of ground bones to the acre, which cost 
some ten dollars; and along side of it another piece, 
with stable manure, at a cost of fifteen dollars per acre, 
at city prices. At harvest, that part manured with sta¬ 
ble manure was much the best, fully equal to the differ¬ 
ence in the cost. The year following, both parts were 
j in grass—the following year in corn, and after that in 
j oats, in all which crops, that part manured with bones 
j was decidedly the best; the crops on it were fully one- 
! third greater. 
The following season I put in three pieces of wheat, 
one with about twenty loads of barn yard manure, one 
with fifty bushels of poudrette, and the last with fifty 
bushels of ground bones to the acre. At harvest, the 
part manured with poudrette was the best; the part ma¬ 
nured with yard manure the second best; and the part 
with bones almost an entire failure. That season the 
fly was bad, and this part having a late start, was har¬ 
vested by them so completely that I did not get back 
my seed; but I made it all up the last season with 
grass; for the product of that part on which bones had 
been put, although before the poorest part of the field, 
was greater than that of either the others. 
The following season I pursued the experiment still 
further. In putting in wheat, I selected two lots of an 
acre each, lying side by side, of precisely the same 
kind of soil, formed from the disintegration of mica 
and quartz. On one I put twenty loads, two horse wa¬ 
gon loads, of barn-yard manure which had been housed 
from the rains, and had been well tramped by the cat¬ 
tle ; on the other, fifty bushels of the refuse bones from 
an ivory black factory, consisting of those parts of the 
animal frame which were not firm enough for the man¬ 
ufacturer’s purpose, and mixed with some portion of 
boiled animal muscle, the whole costing about ten dol¬ 
lars per acre. The result of this experiment was, that 
where the yard manure had been put, the wheat, in the 
early part of the season was much the best, and re¬ 
mained the best at harvest, although by that time, the 
difference was not so perceptible; but when, last sea¬ 
son, it was mown, the difference w r as greatly in favor 
of the bones. The product w T as so much greater, that 
skepticism itself conld not raise a doubt. 
I have been sorry a hundred times since, that an ac¬ 
curate measure of the products of the various trials was 
not taken; but as they were undertaken merely for my 
own satisfaction, and with no thought of publication, it 
was passed over as not worth the trouble. 
Whether the facts warranted above are such as to 
convince any one of the unequalled value of this manure, 
both as to its economy and lasting properties, is for 
others to determine; but if they should not do so, my 
advice would be, to any practical farmer who doubts, 
to try from ten to fifteen dollars’ vrorth to an acre upon 
his wdieat crop, spread broadcast and harrowed in; and 
if that does not convince him, he must indeed be hard 
to satisfy. Pennepacic. Lower Dublin, Pa., Feb.’ 49. 
®I)e iJetamarjj department. 
Stretches and Scours in Sheep. 
Eds. Cultivator —-Your correspondent, R. G., of 
Jefferson county, Ohio, washes some information in re¬ 
ference to the cure of scours and stretches. I weald 
inform him that the first indication in the cure of dis¬ 
ease, is, to remove the predisposing, or direct cause. 
“ The disease was, perhaps, in the first place, indu¬ 
ced by feeding on green frosted oats, and clover, late in 
the fall.” Then I w T ould advise Mr. R. G., and every 
other farmer, not to suffer their animals to feed on such 
indigestible materials again, or any other article of the 
same nature. 
11 As to stretches,” your correspondent states u that 
it is most troublesome and fatal, amongst those flocks 
closely yarded, and fed exclusively on dry feed.” It 
would be something very remarkable if the flock did 
not manifest some signs of stretches, constriction, or 
constipation; let any one of the human family confine 
