I. AGRICULTURE AND RURAL ECONOMY. 381 



London, on the supply of guano in that country, have come 

 to hand, and are calculated to relieve the fears so widely en- 

 tertained of an early failure of the guano supply. On some 

 forty-five different localities on the mainland and islands of 

 the Peruvian dominions guano deposits are found, some of 

 them amounting to millions of tons. 



ARTIFICIAL GUANO. 



The so-called Stammer's guano, prepared from human ex- 

 crements by chemical treatment, by means of peculiar appa- 

 ratus, has been in the market since 1869, in four different 

 grades, adapted to different crops. The consumption of it 

 has increased from 3000 hundred-weight, in the first year, to 

 10,000 in the past year. That exhibited at the Vienna Ex- 

 hibition was in the form of a loose, dry powder, and was 

 found, according to analyses by Moser and Siersch, to contain 

 nitrogen, 1 per cent., 1 per cent., 1.13 per cent., 3.52 per 

 cent.; phosphoric acid, 6.30 per cent., 10.69 per cent., 7.26 

 per cent., 15.06 per cent., in the four grades, respectively. 

 6 C, July 30, 1874, 308. 



FIRST ANNUAL REPORT OF THE MASSACHUSETTS INSPECTOR 



OF FERTILIZERS. 



The first annual report of the State Inspector of Fertilizers 

 in Massachusetts, Professor Goessmann, of Amherst Agricult- 

 ural College, contains considerable information about the 

 more important of our fertilizing materials, their sources of 

 supply, prices, and value. 



From 30,000 to 35,000 tons of Peruvian guano are annual- 

 ly consumed in this country. This comes mostly from the 

 Guanape Islands, and is somewhat inferior in quality to that 

 formerly obtained from the Chincha Islands, the supply of 

 which is nearly exhausted. Considering its composition, 

 Peruvian guano is, when unadulterated, one of the best and 

 cheapest fertilizers in the market. Of fish-scrap and fish-gu- 

 ano, large quantities are made on the coast of New England 

 and Long Island. In 1872 some forty-two fish-rendering es- 

 tablishments were reported as in operation, producing 32,570 

 tons of scrap. Animal dust made of blood, meat-scraps, and 

 bones from slaughter-houses ; ground bones and bone-black 

 waste, are also very valuable and of increasing importance. 



