44
bones have been gathered. Heads and ribs are worth five dollars a ton, being sent to Philadelphia and ground up for fertilizers. Shins and shoulder blades are ten dollars a ton. These are used in the sugar refineries. Horns are worth thirty dollars per ton. The tips are sawn off and sold at manufactories of umbrellas, fans, pipes, etc., and the remainder is used by the chemists. Bits of hide hanging on the heads are used to make glue. Thus every part is used and made useful.
Dr. Voelcker, Chemist of the Royal Agricultural Society, says: "High pressure steam renders bones so brittle that they can be easily ground into fine powder, which is readily assimilated by plants." He adds: "Bone meal, prepared by high pressure steam, contains not much less nitrogen than ordinary bone dust, and as a manure, is far more efficacious and valuable."
Placed in a heap with ashes or sand, and occasionally wet with liquid manure or water, bones decay and make a more soluble and energetic manure than ordinary bone dust. Bones may be soon rendered available for fertilizing purposes by placing them in a large kettle, mixed with ashes, and about one peck of lime to a barrel of bones. Cover with water, and boil. In twenty-four hours all the bones, with the exception perhaps of the hard shin bones, will become so much softened as to be easily pulverized by the hand. They will be in a pasty condition, ready to mix, with much loam and ashes. By boiling a few hours longer, the shin bones may be made soft. Alternate layers of bones and ashes placed in a cask will, in a few months, decompose the combination, being an excellent fertilizer. These methods are cheaper than to dissolve bones by acids, as has been practiced to some extent.
IRRIGATION
Is the chief and probably the only profitable way of raising grain, fruits and vegetables west of Fort Mason, in Texas. It is also largely done in Llano, San Saba, Bexar and other counties west of the Colorado. Properly done, with good cultivation, it is the best and most satisfactory method of farming, because its results are sure to be profitable. Good crops are generally sure, let the climate be as it may. Insects may injure the crops, and grasshoppers sometimes do, but rarely. This is true westward









