lie 



ANNUAL REPORT OF THE 



Off. Doc. 



1. Dried blood 



2. High grade tankage, . 



3. Fish 



4. Hoof-meal 



5. Base goods (wet mix), 



6. Cottonseed meal, 



7. Castor pomace 



8. Medium tankage, 



9. Bone meal, 



10. Treated leather 



11. Charred leather 



12. Garbage tankage 



13. Peat 



14. Mora meal 



10.13 

 S.lfi 



7.74 

 10.56 

 1.49 

 4.72 

 8.43 

 4.04 

 1.98 

 3.78 

 .23 

 1.21 

 1.30 

 1.06 



'The behavior of mixtures of these materials with one another and 

 with the ordinary minerals of fertilizers, gave results closely corre- 

 sponding to those calculated from the facts for the nitrogenous in- 

 gredients when severally treated by this method. 



"The fifth column of figures shows that, of the materials examined, 

 sixty per cent, or more of the water-insoluble nitrogen was active in 

 dried blood, tankages (high and low-grade), fish, hoof-meal (fine), 

 cottonseed meal and bone meal; from forty -two (42) to sixty (60) 

 per cent., in castor pomace and treated leather; less than forty -two 

 (42) per cent, in peat, wet-mixed base goods of ordinary composi- 

 tion, mora meal, garbage tankage and charred leather. The be- 

 havior of the water-insoluble nitrogen of cyanamid has been studied 

 by Mr. Cathcart, of the New Jersey Experiment Station, and found 

 to be highly resistant to the alkaline permanganate, less than one- 

 fifth being 'active.' 



"For the sake of condensing as much as practicable the more im- 

 portant facts of composition in the tables of fertilizer analyses, pub- 

 lished by the Department, the results for nitrogen are reported under 

 the headings, water-soluble, available, inactive insoluble and total. 

 To the figures in the 'inactive insoluble' column is affixed the letters 

 'a,' 'b' on 'c,' according to the quality of the insoluble material, 'a' 

 representing good, 'b' medium, and 'c' poor or low-grade material. 



"It is needful to keep clearly in mind the meaning of the index 'c' 

 as thus applied. Its presence does not suffice to indicate that the fer- 

 tilizer contains no readily available nitrogen, but merely that part 

 or all of the insoluble nitrogen is derived from law grade sources, 

 barring cases in which cyanamid is one of the fertilizer ingredients. 

 These low grade materials may be such as are listed in Section 4 

 of the law, or others in common use, such as garbage tankage, peat or 

 mora meal ; and they may be, if of animal origin, have had their nit- 

 rogenous materials changed almost entirely to an available condition 

 by 'wet mixing,' which has, however, little improving effect upon the 

 nitrogenous constituents of garbage tankage or mora meal, and little 

 upon those of peat. 



