USE FOR FARMYARD BONES

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 946, 12 April 1930, Page 30

USE FOR FARMYARD BONES

Nearly all amateur gardeners save bones for the purpose of placing them under newly-planted trees, and this, no doubt, is a good way of getting rid of them and also assisting to give the trees food in later years, but bones buried in their natural condition decompose so slowly as to be useless for ordinary vegetable crops. Commercially they are treated with sulphuric acid which, however, is not possible icr amateurs to do. An easier way is to dissolve the bones with lime. Build a heap by placing first 6in. of bones, then 3in. of quicklime, followed by 4in. cf loamy soil, then more bones, and so on, finally entirely covering the i bones with a thick layer of fine soil, j Holes should then be made right j down through the heap, and water poured in to slack the lime. The mass will then become hot, and at the end i of three months the heap will slice down like cheese, and the material, j in the shape of a valuable fertiliser, | can be applied to the land where all I crops tolerating lime will assimilate it.