pply of phosphorus and lime to the body
is the cause of the popularity of Mapes's superphosphate of lime as a
manure. The farmers who buy it, perhaps, do not know that their bones
and other parts are made of it, and that this is the reason they must
furnish it to their land; for between the land and the farmer's bones
are two or three other factories that require the same material. All
the farmer knows is, that his grass and his corn grow better for the
superphosphate. But what he has not thought of we will tell you,--that
man finds his phosphate of lime in the milk and meat of the cow, and she
finds her supply in the grass and corn, which look to the farmer to see
that their stock of this useful mineral compound does not fall short.
Thus in milk and meat and corn, which constitute so large a part of our
diet, we have always our phosphate of lime. There are many other sources
whence we can derive it, but these will do for the present. And thus,
when an animal dies and has no further use for his phosphate of lime, it
is washed into the soil around, after decomposition of the body has set
it free, and goes to make new grass and corn. Bone-earth (pounded bones)
is a common top-dressing for grass-lands.

A small proportion of sulphur is found in flesh and blood. We prove its
presence in the egg by common experience. An egg--from which it escapes
more easily than from flesh--discovers its presence by blackening
silver, as every housekeeper knows, whose social position is too high
for bone egg-spoons or too low for gold ones. This passion which sulphur
entertains for silver is very strong, as every one knows who has ever
been under that wholesome discipline which had its weekly recurrence at
the delightful institution of Dotheboy's Hall; and what Anglo-Saxon ever
grew up, innocent of that delectable vernal medicine to which we refer?
Has he not found all the silver change in his pocket grow black,
suggesting very unpleasant suspicions of bogus coin? The sulphur, being
more than is wanted in the economy of the system, has made its escape
through every pore in his skin, and, of course, fraternizes with the
silver on its way. But it was of the sulphur which is natural to the
body and always found there that we were speaking. When the animal
dies, and the vital forces give way to chemical affinities, when the
phosphorus and the rest take their departure, the sulphur, too, finds
itself occupation in new fields of duty.

Chlorine