AGRICULTURE AND RURAL ECONOMY. 379 



Value of Animal Waste as Food for Stock. Fish-Scrap. 



From what has been said, it is clear that fish-scrap, meat- 

 scrap, dried blood, and the like are certainly valuable foods 

 for sheep and swine, and probably for neat cattle. What 

 makes them especially so is that, aside from their concen- 

 tration and their easy digestibility, they consist mainly of 

 nitrogenous matters and fats, the most precious ingredients 

 and the ones most apt to be lacking in our common fod- 

 der materials. They will be used most profitably when 

 mixed with foods poor in the albuminoids which it furnishes. 

 Such are poor hay, straw, corn-stalks, corn, potatoes, and 

 roots. The latter can thus be made into the best kind of 

 food, and the fish-scrap at the same time be improved as a 

 fertilizer. One great difficulty in the way of feeding fish- 

 scrap, dried blood, and meat-scrap has been their bad odor 

 and taste, particularly after decomposition has set in. Of 

 late, however, methods have been devised for preparing 

 these materials in forms more palatable and less prone to 

 decay. Meat-scrap is now offered in the market as light in 

 color, nearly as fine and free from odor and tendency to de- 

 cay, and fully as wholesome in appearance, as corn -meal. 

 Two new processes for extracting oil from fish Goodale's 

 and Adamson's are just coming into use, and give promise 

 of furnishing a fish-scrap which can easily be made into an 

 excellent food for stock. One Great advantage of the fish 

 meals made by these latter processes is that they have all, 

 or nearly all, the flesh of the fish, and comparatively little 

 else. Samples of both kinds, lately analyzed, have yielded 

 over ten per cent, of nitrogen. A fish-guano made by Good- 

 ale's process gave some ten and one-fourth per cent, of nitro- 

 gen, and a little over seven per cent, of phosphoric acid. 

 The fish -guano which has proved so valuable for food in 

 European experiments was made of the heads and backs of 

 codfish, and contained a much larger amount of phosphoric 

 acid. Our products must be much better, because they have 

 less phosphoric acid that is to say, less bone whose pres- 

 ence is objectionable. 



We have seen what a loss comes to our agriculture from 

 the exportation of meat-blood and fish products, as well as 

 from the improper use as fertilizers of those which we keep 



