The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1886-07-17

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equally valuable in agriculture. When
ground down to fine powder and
mixed with sulphuric acid they
become that great fertilizer, superphos-
plate of lime, restoring to the soil all
the productive qualities that have been
taken out of it by Over-cropping.
Wheat-growing is very exhaustive to
the soil; indeed, we could not go on
growing wheat for many years without
reducing it to sterility, were it not for
the use of this superphosphate. Phos-
phorus, again, is another extractive
from bones.
Old iron finds its way into a very
spacious sieve. Like the glass, its SUBJ
stance is difficult to destroy; indeed,
some old iron is rendered much more
valuable by being knocked about.
Thus, old iron in the form of horse
shoes, and horseshoe nails, fetches a
much higher price than the original
metal from which they were made; the
toughness it acquires by constant
blows and conclusions gives it great
ly enhanced value in the market. Old
timed articles, such as slop-pails and
saucepans, are first heated, to recover
their tin and the solder with which they
are made, both of which articles are
more valuable than the Old iron. Paper
is carefully collected, and goes once
again to the paper-mills. Like glass,
the original fibre is very indestructible;
for all we know, the note paper on
which we indite the tenderest love-let-
tiers to our beloved was made from an
old account-book of tallow-chandler,
or from the musty records of the past
centuries. In turning over the rag
mans basket, what singular history
we have! The ball-dress of lady
drops into q rag-basket and reappears
as billet-doux; disappears again to
reappear once more in the drawing
room or the nursery rs workbox of
papier- mache, or doll, or even into
the wheels of railway trucks, and other
uses to which paper is now put.
Whilst, however, we are watching
the sifters grubbing over the heaps-as
we have said. like so many crows-they
all rise together, as we sometimes see
these birds do, without any apparent
cause. and make off to the nearest
public house. But there is cause, we
may be sure, for this sudden fight. If
you ask the overlooker. he speedily en-
lightens you: 30, they've been and
found some money in the dustheap, and
when they do, it is rule among them
to share it together in drink. By and
by, their little iollifcation over, they
return. If there is any thing that can
be used as food in the dust, the chill
women" are entitled to it as perqlli-
site, In this manner they obtain many
pieces of bread which the reader might
not like to eat, but which they either
do not object to, or put to other uses.
All the pieces. of wood are also con-
sidered to be theirs; and when they
leave work, they may be seen laden
with fuel of this kind, which saves
them more expensive firing. The
broken china and crockery goes to
make the foundations of roads and
paths; and all the ''soft core'-namely,
refuse vegetable matter-is returned
directly to the fields in the shape of
Old clothes are not the least
valuable items of the dustyard. Any
thing in the shape of cotton, even
to the covering of the crinoline steels
and stay-bones, is put aside for the
Cloth finds its way to the
shoddy-mills of Lancashire, where it
is purified and ground down and re-
made into coarse cloth. The old wool
en- garments that are turned thus into
shoddy are equal to contribution OF
twenty-five thousand tons of wool. Yet
these old clothes, not many years ago,
were considered of no more value than
to be thrown upon the manure-heap,
there slowly to suffer disintegration
until fit to be placed upon the land. In
deed, there is class of rags which is
now taken directly to the soil. Old
house and dish cloths soaked with
grease and animal refuse make capital
In the dust-contractors'
yards we may see them spread upon
the ground to dry, preparatory to their
being forwarded to the hop-grounds,
where they are much used for the cult
walton of that plant. Old boots and
shoes, if not too much dilapidated, find
their way to the back slums of the
town, where class of tradesmen live
who patch them up. and, by the aid of
heel-ball, make them once more pre-
We had almost forgotten to say that
no inconsiderable amount of coal is
rescued from the dustheap. This. of
course, does not go to the brickyard; it
is purchased by the poor. In well-to-
do neighborhoods, and especially in the
fashionable quarter of the town, the
ashes are rarely sifted; hence, pieces of
coal half-burnt, or small Jumps, are
thrown away every morning. This ex-
travagance makes the dust of the
better portions of the town far more val
liable than that collected from the
poverty-stricken districts. Indeed, the
dust in the aristocratic portion of the
town is richer in every valuable refuse
there are more bones, more ..breeze,"
more refuse clothing, than ever find
chance of getting into the boxes and
middens of the poor quarter,