' of cargoes from continental Europe. 
The best bone-dust is found to weigh 54 lbs. per 
bushel; and reckoning 20 bushels of such dust a 
sufficient dose for an imperial acre of turnips, 
the average quantity imported into Aberdeen 
should dress 7,178} acres; and that not merely 
for the green crop, but for the whole of the usual 
five or six course rotations. And used in sup- 
plement to a dose of 10 tons of farm-yard man- 
ure, the more common and certainly more profit- 
able way of using it, on open soils, the 3,461 tons 
would suffice for from 14,356 to 17,946 acres.” 
Almost every seaport of any consequence on 
the east coast of Great Britain has one or more 
mills for crushing bones into a condition to be 
used as manure, and annually imports a number 
Yet Hull 
excels all the others in this traffic; and some- 
times has in.its docks, at one moment, not fewer 
than thirty or forty cargoes of bones,—all des- 
tined to be crushed in and around the town, and 
a considerable proportion to be sent up the in- 
land navigations of the Humber for dispersion 
through the interior of the country. In 1823, 
the declared value of the bones imported into 
Great Britain was only £14,395; in 1837, it was 
£254,600; and, since the latter date, the quan- 
tity must have very greatly increased. In 1815, 
the quantity imported into Hull was about 8,000 
tons; in 1833, it was 17,500 tons; and, in 1835, 
it was 25,700 tons. Most are ordered from com- 
_ mercial houses in Hamburgh, who have ramifi- 
| Cations in all the western seaports of the conti- 
nent; and the greater part are brought to Bri- 
tain in vessels belonging to the Netherlands, to 
the free towns of Germany, to Denmark, and to 
the Baltic. 
Bones are carefully collected in both town and 
country throughout Great Britain. Every well 
conducted farmstead has a large old cask or some 
other suitable receptacle for them, situated in 
some such place as the inner court of the cart- 
shed, and protected by a cover from the aggres- 
sions of dogs, cats, and rats. In large towns, 
numbers of very poor persons earn a miserable 
livelihood by collecting them from every mass of 
rubbish or ashes where they are possibly to be 
found; and, in London, the bone-boilers daily 
send around spring-carts to collect them from 
shambles, inns, eating-houses, and all simi- 
jar places. When a bone- boiler has a bone- 
mill, he first sends them through his coarsest 
breaking cylinders, and then puts them into 
boilers; and when he has not a bone-mill, he 
| employs men to chop them into small pieces 
with short-handled axes, and then to pitch them 
into the boilers. When the bones are well boiled, 
the fat is skimmed off,—the finer portion to be 
used in the manufacture of soap, and the coarser 
portion for coach and cart grease; and when no 
more fat can be obtained, they are stacked up in 
the yard, either to be crushed on the same estab- 
lishment, or to be sold to the bone-crushers of 
the ports along the east coast. 
BONE-MANURE. 
i 
Boiled bones are freed, by the process of boil- 
ing, from all greasy, fleshy, and fibrous matter ; 
and they may, in consequence, be reduced toa 
state of comparatively fine powder. “I find,” 
says Mr. Halkett of New Scone, “that numbers 
of agriculturists, and even scientific men, ‘who 
have analyzed bones, are of opinion that the mar- 
row and fatty matter in them are of great use in 
their operation as a manure; and I must confess 
that at one time I was led to believe, from its 
plausibility, and what I thought a common sense 
view of it, that this was the case. But now, 
after the test of experience, by numerous trials, 
between what we call green bones with all the 
marrow and fat in them, and dry ones free from 
it, I have always found that the latter raised by 
far the best crops. Therefore, I have arrived at 
the conclusion, that the less animal fat in them 
the better, and that the boiling of them before 
crushing, instead of injuring them, is a benefit.” 
A report on bone-manure by the Doncaster Agri- 
cultural Association corroborates Mr. Halkett’s 
observation, and states that bones in their green 
state were found to be less effective fertilizers than 
bones which had passed through the manufactories. 
General experience, too, seems not to have de- 
tected, at all events has not established, any dif- 
ference between the value of the two kinds; for, 
in the great majority of instances, the same price 
is paid for both to the bone-crushers. Yet both 
scientific principles and careful persevering ob- 
servations dissent from these conclusions, and 
affirm that bones which have not been deprived 
of their fat and gelatine, though probably not so 
rapid in their action or aggregately so efficient 
upon turnips as boiled bones, have both a more 
durable and a more powerful influence upon the 
soil, and yield considerably richer results through- 
out the cumulative produce of the rotation. 
All “ green” bones, and such boiled ones as are 
not intended to be completely pulverized, are | 
crushed or brought into a suitable mechanical 
condition for application to the soil, by being 
passed through toothed cylinders, of one, two, or 
three pairs ; and in the case of the green bones, a 
set of malleable iron scrapers is attached to the 
lower part of the cylinders, in order to clear away 
adhering animal matter from the teeth. Small 
machines with two cast-iron toothed cylinders, 
for breaking bones into sufficiently small pieces, 
have been erected on some large farms; yet, ex- 
cept in rare cases, the crushing of bones is a dis- 
tinct occupation, conducted upon an extensive 
scale, and effected in comparatively large and 
powerful mills. Mr. James Anderson of Dundee, 
about seventeen years ago, erected a singularly 
excellent bone-mill, worked by a twelve-horse- 
power steam-engine, for the supply of the districts 
around Dundee; and he sent an elegant metal 
model of it to the Museum of the Highland So- 
ciety, and received from that institution a pre- 
mium in approbation of both his own exertions 
and the construction of his machine. The bones 
