480 
to mix more intimately with the soil, and to in- 
crease its readiness or aptitude for assimilation ; 
but it has been found, by subsequent improve- 
ments upon it, to accomplish also the other and 
broader purposes peculiar to bone-manure. Dr. 
Liebig, who suggested this new practice, says, 
“ The most easy and practical method of effect- 
ing their division is to pour over the bones, in a 
state of fine powder, half their weight of sulphuric 
acid diluted with three or four parts of water, 
and, after they have been digested for some time, 
to add about one hundred parts of water, and to 
sprinkle this acid mixture (phosphates of lime 
and magnesia) before the plough. In a few se- 
conds, the free acids unite with the bases con- 
tained in the earth, and a neutral salt is formed 
in a state of very fine division. Experiments 
| instituted on a soil formed from grauwacke, for 
the purpose of ascertaining the action of the 
manure thus prepared, have distinctly shown 
_ that neither corn nor kitchen- garden plants 
| suffer injurious effects in consequence, but that, 
| on the contrary, they thrive with much more 
| vigour.” —In a comparative experiment, made 
in 1843, on the home-farm of Gordon-casile 
in Morayshire, one acre was manured with 8 
bushels of bone-dust and 14 yards of farm-yard 
| dung; one, with 315 lbs. of guano; one, with 16 
bushels of bone-dust; one, with 2 bushels of 
bone-dust, dissolved in 83 lbs. of sulphuric acid, 
previously diluted with 12 gallons of water,—the 
mixture allowed to remain between two and 
three days in a tub, and then diluted with 388 
_ gallons of water, and applied to the drills by 
| means of a water-cart; and one, with 8 bushels 
of bone-dust, mixed with 83 lbs. of sulphuric 
acid, previously diluted with 12 gallons of water, 
| —and the mixture, nearly in a dry state, sown 
by hand along the drills. The soil on which the 
experiment was made was poor, light, and sandy; 
the turnips, raised immediately upon the man- 
ures, were Dale’s hybrid, sown in drills 27 inches 
apart, and the one-half drawn for cattle in the 
yards, the other half eaten on the ground by 
sheep ; the land was afterwards, without any 
manure, sown down with barley and grass seeds. 
After, in each case, deducting the cost of man- 
ure, the total value of the turnips and barley 
crops, was, on the bone-dust and farm-yard dung, 
£5 18s. 1$d.; on the guano, £5 17s. 93d.; on the 
bone-dust alone, £6 4s. 11d.; on the liquid ap- 
plication of bone-dust and diluted sulphuric acid, 
£7 10s. 1$d.; and on the powdery application of 
bone-dust and diluted sulphuric acid, £6 16s. 9d. 
—Another comparative experiment, of an inter- 
esting character, and exhibiting still more de- 
cisive results in favour of the preparation of 
bones with sulphuric acid, was made, in the 
same year, on Lindor’s farm, St. Briavel’s, in 
Gloucestershire. The scene of this experiment 
| was a worn-out arable field of sandy soil; the 
sowing was in the beginning of August with im- 
proved stone turnips, in lots of a quarter of an 
BONE-MANURE. 
acre; the ground was ridged up at 24 inches, 
the seed drilled on the ridge, and hoed out to 8 
inches; the turnips were horse-hoed three times, 
and hand-hoed twice; and one perch of each lot 
was pulled, topped, and weighed on 8th Jan- 
uary, 1844. One lot was manured with 15 
yards of fat rotten pig’s dung, cost £3 for man- 
ure, and produced 15 tons 2 ewts. 3 qrs. of tur- 
nips; another was manured with 3} bushels of 
bone-dust and 80 lbs. of sulphuric acid, cost £1 
6d. for manure, and produced 13 tons 1 cwt. 1 
qr.; another was manured with 40 bushels of 
coal-ashes, which were saturated in the winter 
of 1842-3 with human urine, cost £1 3s. for 
manure, and produced 12 tons 12 cwts. 3 qrs.;_ 
another was manured with 20 cubic yards of 
road-scrapings, mixed with 280 gallons of human 
urine, and twice turned over in 1842, cost £2 
3s. 6d. for manure, and produced 10 tons 12 
cwts. 2 qrs.; another was manured with 2 cwts. 
of guano, mixed with 12 bushels of pure charcoal 
dust, cost £2 1s. for manure, and produced 10 
tons 5 cwts. 3 qrs.; another was manured with 
7 ewts. of urate, cost £2 1s. 6d. for manure, and 
produced 9 tons 11 ewts. 2 qrs.; another was 
manured with 20 bushels of bones, half dust, cost 
£2 14s. for manure, and produced 9 tons | cwt. ; 
another was manured with 6 bushels of bone- 
dust and 20 bushels of charcoal dust, cost £1 13s. 
for manure, and produced 8 tons 17 cwts.; an- 
other was manured with 16 bushels of bones, | 
half dust, cost £2 4s. for manure, and produced 
8 tons 2 cwts. 3 qrs.; another was manured with 
15 yards of half-rotten common straw dung, cost 
£1 10s. for manure, and produced 6 tons 13 cwts. 
1 qr.; and another received no manure what- 
ever, and produced 1 ton 10 ewts. 2 qrs. Mr. 
Purchas, who reports this experiment in the 
Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society, men- 
tions that the accidents of the weather were pe- 
culiarly unfavourable to the full play of the pre- 
paration of bone-dust with sulphuric acid, and 
states “ that perhaps half the quantity will be 
sufficient, and that the great chemist Liebig, to 
whom we are indebted for this valuable dis- 
covery, is right when he says that a much 
smaller quantity of bones and acid (viz., 40 lbs. 
fine bone-dust and 20 Ibs. sulphuric acid per 
acre) will produce a good crop of turnips.” 
Several inconveniences, involving both risk 
and cost, occur in the method of preparing bone- 
dust with sulphuric acid as recommended by Dr. 
Liebig, and practised in the Gordon-Castle ex- 
periment. The carriage of the sulphuric acid 
from the manufactory or the market town, is 
hazardous, and may be expensive; the process of 
mixation with sulphuric acid upon the farm, may 
inflict very serious accidents upon persons so un- 
acquainted with the tremendously acrid powers 
of that acid as almost all farm-servants are ; suit- 
able vessels for making the preparation either do 
not exist upon a farm, or can be purchased only 
at a considerable cost, and are useless for almost 
