The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1884-04-23
Burnt Bones.

Wo uaVo JuSt Deeu ooWinB upou our
half-acre onion patch two-thirds of bar
rel (about two hundred pounds) of bone
ash, three bushels of bean meal (made
from the spotted beans removed in hand
picking our crop for seed), and ten bush
els of unleached hardwood ashes. The
patch was MANFRED with fourteen one
horse loads of stable manure in the
fall, and plowed. 1t is to-day april 12)
being narrowed, raked, and planted.
The top-dressing we have given it was an
economy of wastes, all produced on the
farm. The ashes was from the house
fires, the beans were of no value to us
(having no Sheep for any other purpose,
and the bones were bought of boys in ex-
change for understandable apples last
fall. Some years we get more than
ton of them in that way, but apples were
scarce last fall, and even culls would sell
for fifty cents bushel. This compost
makes a complete fertilizer, as follows
200 pounds bone ash equal to 20 pounds phssporc acid
pcah W w
500 pounds ashes. to IS pounds potash.
The nitrogen will be exhausted by the
crop of the current year, but the phos-
phoric acid and potash will be felt fora
number of years, although we take about
two hundred and fifty bushels of mer-
charitable onions off the land each year.
The economy of bones, by burning and
pounding 1--WE burn in pile on the
ground, using little fire-wood to start
them, and keep them burning until they
are burnt white then we pound them
on the barn floor with FOUNDER, made
of a block of maple wood, with an
old broom handle inserted in an augur
hole at one end), is one that ought
not to be neglected. There are lots of
old horse and COW bones to be found in
any farm neighborhood, besides the bones
from meat, and from the vicinity of
slaughtering places. On this subject j.
w. Pierce of West Millbury, Mass, writes
as follows in the Ne,o England Farmer:
awe are often advised to reduce bones
with wood ashes, or sulphuric acid, but
such methods are at best slow aud unsat.
isfactory. 1t is better, I believe to sell
them to the soap man, and then buy
ground bone, than to attempt to reduce
them with acid or ashes. But there is
one sure, easy, and entirely practicable
way of utilizing them, and that is to burn
them in wood stove, and save the burned
bone with the ashes. Fresh bones con.
tain much fat, which burns readily, max
ing a hot fire, and if there is good draft,
there will be no unpleasant odor while
burning them. The fat in the bones is
of no value as fertilizer, but is of value
as fuel, and is thus utilized. The phos-
phate of lime is all left in the ash, which
is readily pounded fine, where it will soon
become available as plant food. The
only loss by burning is the three or four
per cent of nitrogen the bones contain,
which, in the light of numerous recent
experiments, has much less value than
was formerly attributed to it. l find
wood ashes, containing more or less
burned bone, as they come from the
kitchen stove, an excellent fertilizer; if
mixed with ten or fifteen pounds of sui
phate of magnesia to each bushel Of
ashes, their value is much enhanced.
Thus prepared, have found them to pro-
duce as good results on any crop to
which have applied them as any fertil-
izer have ever used. wish the readers
of the Farmer would try mixing sulphate
of magnesia with their wood ashes this
spring, and report the result. BY thus
mixing they seem to be rendered much
more available as plant food"
Mr.. Pierce's suggestion of the addition
of sulphate of magnesia to the wood and
bone ashes is probably good one. Sui
phate of magnesia Epson salts) costs
four or five cents pound, and is worth
trying in this way. 1t has been recon-
, mended by several agricultural chemists