BULLETIN OF THE BUSSEY INSTITUTION. 261 
No. 23.— Trials to Determine the Rates at which some 
Fertilizers may be Scattered by Hand. By F. H. Storer, 
Professor of Agricultural Chemistry. 
I HAVE several times been asked the question: ‘‘ About how 
much of a given fertilizer would a man naturally throw from his” 
hand in sowing an acre of land?” With the view of getting at 
least an approximate answer to this enquiry, I measured off a 
half-acre of level grass-land upon the Plain-field of the Bussey 
Institution, and marked its limits with numerous stakes; and in 
April, 1878, set a careful laborer the task of scattering fertilizers 
upon this half-acre, ‘‘as if he were sowing grain thickly.” It 
should be said that the purpose of the trials was solely to deter- 
mine the rate of the scattering, and that the fertilizers were 
chosen merely to this end. I made no estimate, even, of the in- 
crease in the crop of grass, which to all appearance was consider- 
ably more than doubled. A definite quantity of each of the 
fertilizers was weighed out at the beginning, and when the plot 
had been completely sown the unexpended residue of the fertilizer 
was weighed, and subtracted from the original weight, in order to 
find how much had been actually scattered. It was found that 
there had been seattered of — . 
On the halfacre. [Or, on an acre. ] 
a 107 lbs. 214 lbs. 
OO eo 2) 865 * Tits 
Superphosphate of Lime. ... . 864 ** 173‘ 
Blood, Bone, and Meat-Dust fer- 
EEE! bly ts 5, 3, 2 2 62.2.8 red. «6 
The substance sold under the name of blood, bone, and meat 
dust, is the dried refuse of slaughter-houses. It is a light, soft, 
dry powder, so fine that, with the exception of some fragments of 
teeth, the whole of it passes readily through the meshes of a ;',-inch 
sieve. A struck bushel of it weighed 50 tbs. 
The superphosphate was in the state of fine dry powder. A 
struck bushel of it weighed 68 Ibs. 
Both the muriate of potash and the nitrate of soda had been 
beaten on a board floor with the flat of a spade. The muriate 
was in the state of a fine soft powder, the whole of it passed 
readily through }-inch meshes, and most of it through meshes of 
qz-inch. <A struck bushel of it weighed 69 tbs. The nitrate of 
soda was still rather coarse. A few fragments were still as large 
as large peas or maize, and there were many of the size of small 
