70 • BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



1877, - - - 163,220 



1878, - - - 210,323 



1879, ■ - - . 199,365 



1880, ... 190,763 



1881, - - - 266,734 



"We have noticed the chief natural sources of phosphoric acid 

 which supply our markets. Time will not allow us even to name 

 the other localities which supply other lands. 



Besides these there are some considerable supplies of phosphates 

 from waste or bye products. Occasionally we meet with bone-ash 

 from the plains of Sputh America. The plains furnish forage for 

 vast herds of cattle which during the past 100 or 150 years have 

 been killed annually in great numbers for their horns, hides, and 

 fat, while the carcases have been mostly left for birds and beasts 

 of prey. On account of the scarcity of wood the bones have been 

 used for fuel in the factories where the fat was tried out, and 

 in the neighborhood, of course, great heaps of bone-ash accumula- 

 ted which have at last found their way to market. The supply is 

 rapidly diminishing and will soon be exhausted. Then the spent 

 bone-black from sugar refineries furnishes a small but constant sup- 

 ply of material, not suited for direct application to land but much 

 prized as a basis for superphosphate because of its fineness, need- 

 ing no treatment preliminary to solution in oil of vitriol. Bone- 

 black superphosphates seem to be particularly popular with pur- 

 chasers, and as the call for them continues the supply does not^ail. 

 Even when genuine bone-black is out of market some parties, bent 

 on suiting the whims of customers, continue to turn out this popu- 

 lar superphosphate by a judicious mixture of mineral phosphates 

 and lamp-black. 



Lastly, we must briefly speak of bones as a source of phospho- 

 ric acid. No other fertilizing material comes into market in such 

 a great variety of forms. We have bone-chips from the factories 

 where knife-handles and other articles are made from them, bone 

 turnings from the button factories, bone and — so-called — ivory saw- 

 dust, either dry, or wet when the saws are run in water. AVe have 

 bone refuse from glue factories, very fine and dry with little or no 

 nitrogen, steamed bone, that is bone from which the fat has been 

 extracted by cooking with superheated steam, and raw gi-ound bone 

 of all conceivable grades of goodness and badness. Some with 

 fragments of bone as big as peas, some with 30 or 40 per cent, of 



