BONES. The importance of bones is gener ally underestimated. They form the framework of all verterbrate animals, are of great value in many of the arts, and crushed, form one of the most valuable of manures. They consist in 100 parts—of mineral matter, fifty-six, the balance being gelatinous and other destructible matter. The mineral portion—the valuable part—con tains about fifty per cent. of phosphate of lime, of which twenty-four per cent. is phosphoric acid. The gelatinous part of the bone consists of car bon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and sulphur. One hundred parts of gelatine of bones produce, when fermented, twenty-tyvo pounds of ammo nia, together with carbonic acid. Sulphur is also an ingredient of plants. Phosphate of lime is soluble in all acids, and we may say that all the the phosphates are soluble in an excess of acid. When bones are surrounded by fermenting or ganic matter, such as is offered in a manure or compost heap, the phosphate of lime is dissolved in the humidity by the carbonic acid which is constantly being evolved by the fermenting mass. This operation is more or less prompt, according to the activity of the fermenting heap. In the field, where carbonic acid is always present, thia process is constantly going on; but, owing to the presence of the cartilaginous or gelatinous por tion which surrounds the particles of phosphate, the action is less apparent on a large bone than if it were in powder, and the finer the powder the more rapid the decomposition. Bones vary much in their composition, according to the age or variety of the animal. The amount of mineral matter is less in a young animal than in an old one, and the quantity increases gradually with age. Schreger found that the bones of a child contain one-half of phosphate in the entire mass of earthy matter, while those of a full-grown person give four-fifths, and an aged person not less than seven-eighths. The bones of adults contain less water than those of children. When a bone is sufficiently digested in muriatic acid, the mineral part is dissolved, leaving the gelatine, or cartilage, intact, which retains the original form of the bone. Large amounts of gelatine, or glue, are thus made. That portion of the hone dissolved in the acid consists of phosphate of lime and magnesia, fluoride of calcium, and car bonate of lime, with small quantities of salts of potash and soda. All who work the soil know that bones are most valuable applied to all cereal crops, and the grasses and in root crops. The following method of preparing hones on the farm, is from Mr. Pusey, a practical English farmer: The process depends upon the fact that bones consist, to the amount of one-third their weight, of cartilage or animal matter, which, under the influence of warmth and moisture, readily decomposes (ferments or decays) and loses its texture, so that the bones fall to dust. From the closeness and solidity of the bony structure, decay is excited and maintained with some difficulty. A single bone, pr a heap of bones, never decays alone, but dries and hardens on exposure. If, however, bones in quantity be brought into close contact with some easily fer mentable moist substance, but little time elapses before a rapid decay sets in. So, too, if fresh crushed bones are mixed with sand soil, or any powdery matter that fills up the spaces between the fragments of the bone, and makes the heap compact, and then are moistened with pure water, the same result takes place in warm weather, though more slowly. The practical process may be as follows: The bones, if whole, should be broken up, as far as convenient, by a sledge-hammer, and made into alternate layers with sand, loam, saw-dust, leached ashes, coal ashes, or swamp muck, using just enough of any one of these materials to fill compactly the cavities among the bones, but hardly more. Be gin with a thick layer of earth or muck, and as the pile is raised pour on stale urine or dung heap liquor enough to moisten the whole mass thoroughly, and finally, cover a foot thick with Boil or muck. In warm weather the decomposi tion goes on at once, and in from two to six or more weeks the bones will have entirely or nearly disappeared. If the fermentation should spend
itself without reducing the bones sufficiently, the heap may be overhauled and built up again, moistening with liquor manure and covering as before. By thrusting a pole or bar into the heap, the progress of decomposition may he traced, from the heat and odor evolved. Should the heap become heated to the surface, so that am monia escapes, as may be judged by the smell, it may be covered still more thickly with earth or muck. The larger the heap, the finer the bones, and the more stale urine or dung-liquor they have been made to absorb, the more rapid and complete will be the disintegration. In the heaps, horse dung or other manure may replace the ashes, etc., but earth or muck should be used to cover the heap. This bone compost contains the phosphates of lime in a finely divided state, and the nitrogen of the cartilage, which has. mostly passed into ammonia or nitrates, is re. tamed perfectly by the absorbent earth or muck. When carefully prepared, this manure is adapted to be delivered from a drill-machine with seeds, and, according to English farmers, fully replaces in nearly every case the super-phosphate made by help of acid. And this we can indorse. As showing the value of bone phosphate in re storing fertility to soils worn under successive croppings of wheat, we append the following from the report, the results as stated by a com mittee of experts: An analysis of the grain of wheat, that part of the plant which is not again returned to the soil, shows that nearly fifty per cent. of the ash constituent is phosphoric acid, and this is equally true of nearly all the cereal crops. When it is considered that our most fertile soils contain a very small percentage of this essential element, and that in many soils there is scarcely a trace, its real importance in an agricultural point of view can not be questioned. Under our system of cropping, the mineral elements first exhausted are the phosphates, and while conced ing that no special manure can be regarded as a substitute for barnyard manure, the question arises, can the farm be made to sustain its pro ductiveness by the use of manures made solely from the products of the farm? Every bushel of grain and roots; every pound of cheese, butter, and wool; every ton of hay and straw sold, carries away a portion of the organic mineral elements of the soil; and, if something is not added to. supply this deficiency beyond the ordinary accu mulations of the barn-yard, gradual but certain, deterioration of the soil must necessarily follow. The largely increased yield of wheat by the use of clover and plaster on fields partially exhausted, by tillage, the clover being plowed under as a green crop, has led some to suppose that nothing else is needed to retain or restore the fertility of their land. Without doubt there are important benefits derived from the use of clover and plaster as fertilizers; indeed, a soil may have an available• supply of minerals for a wheat crop of forty bushels per acre, but if deficient in ammonia, the crop, depending solely upon the atmosphere for its supply, the yield will not exceed eighteen or twenty bushels, under the most favorable circum stances of weather, ammonial manures being necessary to increase the yield. Yet, valuable as is the clover crop in furnishing this essential organic matter to the cereal crop, it adds, no mineral matter to the soil. The clover crop and the ordinary accumulations of the barn-yard are not sufficient to restore the mineral elements of which the soil is deprived by successive grain crops, and it is necessary to resort to other fertil izers to restore this deficiency. The phosphates, among the mineral elements, necessarily first disappearing on a wheat farm, the value of bone dust and super-phosphates can not be questioned, the former containing about fifty per cent. of phosphoric acid. But it will not do to rely ucon this alone, as will be apparent when the constitu ents of bone-dust are considered. One hundred pounds of raw bones may be estimated to con tain eleven pounds of water, forty-five pounds.