ther words, a dressing of bone-dust frequently contained 200 lbs. of
nitrogen per acre--equal to 20 or 25 tons of barn-yard manure.

"It has been supposed," said the Doctor, "that owing to the removal of
so much phosphoric acid in the cheese sold from the farm, that the dairy
pastures of Cheshire had been exhausted of phosphoric acid, and that the
wonderful benefits following an application of bone-dust to these
pastures, was due to its supplying phosphoric acid."

"I do not doubt," said I, "the value of phosphoric acid when applied in
connection with nitrogen to old pasture lands, but I contend that the
experience of the Cheshire dairymen with bone-dust is no positive proof
that their soils were particularly deficient in phosphoric acid. There
are many instances given where the gelatine of the bones, alone, proved
of great value to the grass. And I think it will be found that the
Cheshire dairymen do not find as much benefit from superphosphate as
they did from bone-dust. And the reason is, that the latter, in addition
to the phosphoric acid, furnished a liberal dressing of nitrogen.
Furthermore, it is not true that dairying specially robs the soil of
phosphoric acid. Take one of these old dairy farms in Cheshire, where a
dressing of bone-dust, according to a writer in the Journal of the Royal
Agricultural Society, has caused 'a miserable covering of pink grass,
rushes, and a variety of other noxious weeds, to give place to the most
luxuriant herbage of wild clover, trefoil, and other succulent and
nutritious grasses.' It is evident from this description of the pastures
before the bones were used, that it would take at least three acres to
keep a cow for a year."

"I have known," says the same writer quoted above, "many a poor, honest,
but half broken-hearted man raised from poverty to comparative
independence, and many a sinking family saved from inevitable ruin by
the help of this wonderful manure." And this writer not only spoke from
observation and experience, but he showed his faith by his works, for he
tells us that he had paid nearly $50,000 for this manure.

Now, on one of these poor dairy farms, where it required 3 acres to keep
a cow, and where the grass was of poor quality, it is not probable that
the cows produced over 250 lbs. of cheese in a year. One thousand pounds
of cheese contains, on the average, about 45-1/2 lbs. of nitrogen; 2-1/2
lbs. of potash, and 11-1/2 lbs. of phosphoric acid. From this it