Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 9.djvu/717

 702 FEDERAL KBPOBTER. �"The changes were made in the 'home fertilizers' at the time we made application for the patent, and we then, as I have stated before, coneluded, inasmuch as dissolved bone was an improvement on fine bono, to use that in the place of it, and we made application for the patent with that im- provement — at least, with that change — for dissolved bone instead of houe dust or fine bone, which we had heen using before. I know it was the date of the application of the patent, but I carmot tell you how near that date it was, or anything about it, without reference to the books. We all agreed among ourselves that dissolved bone was an improvement on bone dust; and we made application for the patent with that understanding, that it was an im- provement, and that it was the great improvement in our formula." �When Dr. Boykin states that from the complainants' observation of the success of certain formulas, and I think he means by this the increasing demand, they were led to introduce dissolved bone as being Buperior to anything else, he does not of course pretend to any claim to have discovered the merits of dissolved bone as a fertilizer. Dis- solved bone had then for 15 or 20 years been well known, among per- sons using or dealing in fertilizers, as one of the approved methods of preparing bone phosphates for that purpose, and dissolved bone was on all the price-lists of such dealers, and was called for in some of the many formulas produced in evidence which were in use prior to 1876. The virtues claimed for it as compared with ground bone, bone meal, or bone dust, for fertilizing, were known, and were the sub- ject of discussion and experiment. It appears from the expert testi- mony to have been thought then, as now, that the dissolved bone was more immediate in its effects but not so lasting ; that if there was present in the soil sufSoient soil water to dissolve the ground bone as rapidly as required by the plant, it was to be preferred as cheaper and more lasting, but that if there was a deficiency of soil water, so that the ground bone was liable to decompose too slowly, then the dis- solved bone was the better. One of the complainants' experts states that he has known dissolved bone to have been used in formulas for fertilizers, in greater or less quantities, for 15 years past. �AU that the complainants can possibly daim, so far as the dis- solved bone is concerned, is that they have substituted in the Liebig formula one well-known form of bone phosphate fertilizer for an- other well-known form. Beyond the presumption arising from the patent, there is very little to show just when they made this change. The testimony of Dr. Boykin leaves it very uncertain. In one part of his testimony above quoted he says the change was made by them at the time they made application for the patent, viz., March 1, ��� �