The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1877-06-08

W., in which recommend the mixture.
My statement was founded upon the re-
suits Of carefully conducted experiments
in the use of fine bone alone, and those
of an equal mixture of bone and ashes.
The mixture was made by the addition
of boiling water. The yield Of Swedish
turnips and some other crops was about
twice az great where the mixture was
applied as where the dry bone meal
was applied. am happy to know that
| am not alone in recommending the
mixture of bone and ashes as fertilizers.
At the annual meeting of the Massa-
chusetts Board of Agriculture, at Fall
River, November, 1871, discussion on
the use of bones, ashes and potash, was
participated in by DR.. Nichols, DR..
Durfce, Mr.. Burlington and others.
DR.. Nichols said, 81 suppose the gentle
man pays 1-2 cents pound for his
potash. Wood ashes would be cheaper
If he paid thirty-fyc cents bushel."
Mr.. Burlington said, ~ cannot got them
for less than forty-fve cents q bushel,
and with great deal of coal ashes mix
ed with them" Dr. Nichols replied:
81 should hope no one would sell wood
ashes for less than forty cents bushel,
because from bushel of wood ashes
you get four pounds of potash, and then
you have some soda, considerable
amount of soluble silica, and very
considerable amount of phosphate of
lime. You have material IN bushel OF
ashes that really makes its money value
as high as forty cents" DR.. Durfee
asked the following question: Sin what
way would you manage these ashes il
you had plenty of them2 l have plenty
of them, and should like to know how
to use them to the best advantage. !
have been buying ground bone, and
making compost. The ashes eat up
the bone, and l find it makes most ex-
cellent dressing for land, especially for
vegetables" DR.. Nichols replied:
| DWELL, Doctor, you cannot make much
| improvement upon that. You see, In
mixing ashes with bone, you get all the
essentials Of plant food. You get the
the gclatine in the bone; you get nitro
gen, potash and soda; what more can
you have? think that it Is a very
profitable fertilizer to use on corn. /
think YOU are quite right in your man.
| ipulation of ashes, a considerable
quantity Of earth should be put upon
the compost before the seed Is drop
ped"
From The foregoing 1 think j. W.
will consider that the advice to mix his
bone dust and ashes was good. At the
same meeting mentioned above, while
the "manure question" was being dis
cussed, Mr.. Harlow, of Shrewsbury,
said he had "tricd some experiments in
sowing ashes and bones. Coal ashes
have also been spoken of. Four years
ago took quite large quantity of coal
ashes and sOwed them upon piece ten
rods square. have watched that piece
closely ever since, and not an extra
spear of grass has grown upon it. al
so purchased quantity of bone, as
pure as could be found, ground very
fine, and in seeding down piece of
land / sowcd ii to barley and applied
the bone, five hundred pounds 10 half
acre, leaving strips where | put none.
| do not think there was spear Of
grass extra grew upon that half acre"
Possibly the land had naturally full
supply of the phosphates, and the appli-
cation of his five hundred pounds of
bone was like carrying Goals to New
castle. Another experiment Mr.. Har-
low had tried was the following: 81
had piece of pasture land of fifteen
acres that had been fed for a hundred
years, presume, and do not know
but longer. On four acres of that piece
l sowed about one hundred bushels Of
ashes, and there has more feed grown
upon those four acres, than upon all the
rest Of the fifteen. Unlcachcd ashes Is
the only thing that l have ever applied
that paid me what it cost"
At an annual meeting of the Massa-
chusetts Board of Agriculture, Mr.. San
dcrson gave a lecture on Amending
Soils by Mechanical Means" reported
by Secretary Flint in his sixteenth re-
port as follows: SIN the course of his
remarks he said, bones can hardly be
deemed by the farmer Of too much i'm
portancc. -" The process Of dccom-
posing bones by the aid Of wood ashes
or sulphuric acid, should not only be
understood by every farmer" From
the foregoing statement, j. w. can
Judge which is the better way to use his
bone meal-by scattering 1t In its raw
state over his grass land, as suggested
by W. j. F., or partially to decompose
It by the use Of wood ashes before ap-
plication, as recommended by mo-
Levi Bartlett, In Country Gentleman.