FARM AND DAIRY.

Taranaki Daily News, 2 November 1915, Page 2

FARM AND DAIRY.

THE VALUE OF BONF.s The value of bones as a manure has been known for a long time. It is said that they have been used for centuries in the South of France in vine cultivation, although English farmers were the first to employ them in general agriculture. There is the following interesting note in a French book published about a year ago. on the "Manufacture of Chemical Manures":—"ln England, Hunter drew the attention of farmers to bones in 177'1. In that country (England) tin l use of bones doubled and trebled the production os poor land." At first the bones were roughly broken, but gradually, as the better effects of more finely-ground material was observed, it became customary to break them up more completely, accelerating their decomposition, and providing less convenient morsels for crows to carry off. More recently, after the advantage of dissolving raw bones with sulphuric acid was recognised, the application of raw bones or bone-meal to the fields wapartly given up, and dissolved bones substituted for the raw material. It was certainly a move in the right direction, and now for more than half a century dissolved bones and hone manures have figured largely in the lists of chemical manufacturers. At the present time there is throughout the country an enormous demand for them, and this is eloquent testimony of their useful nature, because the demand has regularly continued in spite of the suggestions of some agricultural chemists that dissolved bones were sold above their real fertilising value as compared with mixtures of superphosphates and sulphate of ammonia, Sufficient importance was not ! given by such chemists to the different [character of the materials; in theory they might possibly be right, but in practice the farmers were better judges, and refused to be seduced from their allegiance to the favorite old bone manures, from which good crops had always been gTown, Bones could be converted into a manure by grinding, hut it is essential that they should be reduced to a very fine flour to get the full benefit out of them. They can be treated bv the process of fermentation by roughly crushing and making into heaps, moistend and allowed to heat, adding such fermentable liquids as horse urine from time to time. When treated in this way they should be fit to use in a few weeks. Another method is to dissolve the bones by mean 9 of acids, but it ij too extensive for general ui*