- When a soil is of a very decidedly open tex- 
ture, bone-dust ought to be applied to it only in 
accompaniment with farm-yard manure,—the 
latter being first spread in the drills, and then 
the bone-dust sown over it, before covering 
in with the plough. This accompaniment of 
farm-yard manure with bone-dust is peculiarly 
suitable for dry seasons and early sown turnips. 
A good proportion of the two manures, in ordi- 
nary cases, is from § to 10 bushels of the bone- 
dust, and about 10 tons of the farm-yard manure. 
—But another and more common method of 
jointly applying the two is previously to mix 
them, to induce nascent decomposition of the 
bones, and to commingle all the ingredients of 
the farm-yard manure with them into a compost. 
The proportions in which they may be mixed, for 
this mode of application, is either about 50 bush- 
els of bones and 4 or 5 tons of farm-yard dung, 
or about 20 bushels of bones and 4 or 5 tons of 
dung, or about 12 bushels of bones and about 8 
| tons of dung, The bones, when mixed in any of 
| these proportions, or in any intermediate ones, 
and thrown together with the dung in a well- 
covered heap, will very rapidly undergo decom- 
position. One farmer states, “that he has used 
as much as 35 bushels of bone-dust, per acre, 
without manure, in the same field where he laid 
six loads of fold manure and ten bushels of bone- 
dust; but the turnips on the part manured with 
bone-dust alone were not so good as those on the 
part manured with the compost, and the suc- 
ceeding crops were still worse in comparison.” 
A frequent and usually advantageous method, 
for soils of a less light and open kind than those 
for which the commixation of bone-dust and 
farm-yard manure is suitable, is to work the 
bone-manure into a compost or mixture with 
ashes, loams, clays, or decayed vegetable mat- 
ters, according to the particular character of 
individual soils, with clay for sandy soils, with 
ashes for clayey soils, and with loam or decayed 
vegetable for soils of medium porosity. Many 
intelligent farmers have reported, as the result 
of their own experience, that bone composts of 
these various kinds have acted more beneficially 
than bones alone; yet they do not seem, in gen- 
eral, to have adverted to the fact that such com- 
posts are valuable chiefly if not solely in the 
case of ‘ green’ or unboiled bones, and that the 
rationale of their superiority consists in their 
sclvent action upon the gelatine and the fat. 
Some farmers give to each acre a compost of 50 
bushels of bone-dust and 5 loads of burnt clay 
or of good earth, and, by applying it broadcast 
and ploughing it in, have found it increasing the 
value twenty per cent. of all the crops of a rota- 
tion excepting clover. Other farmers apply to 
each acre a compost of 40 bushels of two-inch or 
three-inch bones, 5 loads of farm-yard manure, 
and a considerable but indefinite quantity of 
earth, and have observed a very visible effect 
from it upon the wheat crop at the end of a four- 
BONE-MANURE. _ 
479 
year rotation. Other farmers use a compost of 
bone-dust, rape-dust, soot, farm-yard manure, 
and the ashes of weeds or of house fires, and find 
it eliminating a vast heat and undergoing a pro- 
portionately active fermentation. Mr. Shier re- 
commends, as the best method of application to | 
meadow or old pasture, such a compost of bone- 
dust, urine, and earth, that 8 or 10 bushels of 
bone-dust shall be given to each acre. 
A writer in the Quarterly Journal of Agricul- 
ture of March 1833 asserts, as a result of his own | 
experience, that about one-half of the usual quan- 
tity of bone-dust is efficient for the turnip-crop, 
when prepared into a compost with common 
coal-ashes. He says, “The quantity of bone-dust 
usually applied is two quarters per imperial acre: 
I use only one quarter per acre, but I always mix 
the bones with coal-ashes. These ashes may be 
procured in towns and villages, at a price not 
exceeding 5s. per ton; and the quantity mixed 
with the bones depends in a great measure on 
the quantity of ashes that can be obtained ; the 
more of course the better, but it should never 
be less than one or two quarters per acre. ‘The 
ashes are put in a dry place, under cover, such 
as a cart-shed or an out-house, and riddled as 
small as bone-dust itself. That which passes 
through the riddle ought only to be mixed with 
the bones. The bones should be very carefully 
and equally mixed through the mass, which will 
be best effected by frequent turnings with the 
shovel. The turnings also assist in drying the 
ashes, which, if they are not, they will not pass 
easily through the hopper of the sowing-machine. 
The ashes should be collected as early in the sea- 
son as possible, that they may get thoroughly 
dried. After the bones are mixed with the ashes, 
the mass ferments, and evolves a considerable | 
degree of heat, which subsiding, assists the dry- 
ing of the ashes considerably. To expedite the 
drying of the ashes, when they cannot be pro- | 
cured early enough in the season, I would recom- 
mend their being strewed with a dusting of hot 
lime, while the mass is turning over, in the same 
manner that pickled wheat is dried with lme 
to render it fit for sowing. I never tried this 
expedient, because I always procured an early 
supply of ashes; but I feel confident it will an- 
swer the purpose. The compost is sown with the 
usual machine. Turnips raised with this com- 
post of bone-dust and coal-ashes, in the quantity 
alluded to, I have sold for £7 per acre, to be 
eaten off with sheep; and they always possessed 
the same characters of a close crop, firm root, 
and hardiness to resist the rigours of winter, that 
turnips raised with bone-dust alone evince.” 
A method of treating bone-manure with sul- 
phuric acid before applying it to the soil, has 
recently come into extensive use, and seems, from 
many experiments and concurrent observation, 
to be superior to all the older methods. It was 
originally designed merely to reduce the bone- 
manure to a state of fine powder, to occasion it 
