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To PREPARE BONES FOR MANURE.—As mills for grinding bones are very costly, it is a great desideratum for the farmer to know how he can otherwise prepare them for his crops. By the following simple method he can reduce them to fine powder and increase the value four fold as

Take 100 lbs of bones, and place them in a kettle or in an old tub unfit for further use, or in a hole scooped in the ground and made tight by lining it with clay. Next take from 3 to 3½ lbs of oil of vitrol (sulphuric acid,) mixed with one third or one half its weight of water, and pour over the bones. In a day or two, the bones will dissolve into a liquid paste, to which there must be added, by stirring in, wood ashes or fine mould, until it is of the consistency of thick mortar. Put the mixture under cover out of the way of rain, and in a few weeks it will become a light dry powder, which may be applied by the hand or otherwise; to any kind of land that may require it. In preparing this mixture, great care must be observed to keep the oil of vitrol from touching the clothes or skin, as it will burn them as badly as fire.

The oil of vitrol, for this mixture, must be of a first rate quality, otherwise it would require a greater quantity than given above to dissolve 100 lbs. of bones. The mixture answers best for a turnip-crop; but it is highly valuable for other roots as well as for grass and grain. It should be applied at the rate of 20 to 40 bushels to the acre, sown broadcast on grass land, in the spring, or on turnip-crops planted in rows or drills as roots, corn, beans, peas, &c. &c., it may be applied in the hills or rows at the time of sowing, or it may be afterwards sprinkled around the plants at the time of hoeing.