Bone Meal

Bone Meal is a material made from the bones of killed Skeletons. It is used as a dye or as a fertilizer.

Dye
Like all dyes, bone meal can be applied directly to sheep to color them white. This is the only direct use of bone meal as a dye since it cannot be used to change colored wool blocks back into white wool at a crafting table. It can also be combined with other dyes to produce new colors:

Fertilizer
When using Bone Meal as fertilizer, there is a chance of failure for saplings and mushrooms. In that case, the procedure must be repeated until it eventually works.
 * Crops: When applied to planted wheat, one bone meal is consumed and the crop grows instantly, ready to be harvested.
 * Melons: When applied to the planted stem, one bone meal is consumed and the stem grows instantly, ready to spawn melons.
 * Pumpkins: When applied to the planted stem, one bone meal is consumed and the stem grows instantly, ready to spawn pumpkins.
 * Saplings: When applied, one bone meal is consumed and the sapling grows instantly into a tree, provided it has enough space.
 * Grass: When applied to a grass block, one bone meal is consumed and tall grass, and usually a few flowers, form around and on the grass block.
 * Mushrooms: When applied to a mushroom, one bone meal is consumed and the mushroom grows instantly into a Huge Mushroom. It is possible to be harmed and knocked back if the huge mushroom grows to occupy the space you are in. While the damage is minimal, use caution when growing Huge Mushrooms with low health or near cliffs.
 * This effect does not work on cacti, sugar cane, tree or Nether Wart.

Trivia

 * Bone meal's fertilizing properties make it ideal for growing large quantities of trees or wheat in tight spaces very quickly. A single bone's worth of bone meal can generate enough wheat for one bread or cake.
 * Using bone meal over grass blocks immediately gives you the tall grass, roses and dandelions. It is faster than having to go search for more.
 * Using bone meal to fertilize, harvest and replant Seeds is a fast way of creating a large number of seeds at the expense of bone meal instead of harvesting tall grass. This method also produces wheat and can be used to replace traditional farming methods.
 * In Beta SMP version 1.3, there was a bug with Bone Meal so that it would have a 100% chance of succeeding on the first try when used on trees and crops.
 * One bone can be crafted to 3 bone meal, which means (on a successful drop), you can get 3 or 6 units of bone meal from a single skeleton.
 * There is a crafting recipe that uses white wool and bone meal. It is useless, however, because it outputs white wool, thus wasting bone meal.
 * There is also a crafting recipe that uses colored wool and bone meal. This causes the colored wool to turn white.
 * Grass planted with bone meal in an already populous area of tall grass can force grass to appear up to 5 blocks away from where you originally used it. The same can be done with flowers.