1882.] COMMERCIAL FERTILIZERS. 85 



than these substances, the horn shavings and the wool-waste. 

 Both made a very hot pile indeed, and would decompose in a 

 very little while and produce an odor that was exceedingly 

 disagreeable. To illustrate this I will tell a little story. I 

 had a man at work for me who lived in his own home with 

 his w-oman, who was hardly as neat as some of us would like 

 our wives to be. I remember going there once when he was 

 unable to do some little thing about the house, with another 

 man to assist, and we were obliged to go to the window and 

 put our heads out, the odor in the house was so strong and 

 disagreeable. I set that man at work shovelling over a pile 

 of this wool- waste and muck. I went up to the spot during 

 the day and found him sitting on a stone some rods away 

 from the |)ile, and when I asked him what the trouble was, he 

 said : " The fact is, Sir, I can't stand no sort of stink." I 

 thought if muck and wool-waste were so strong as to affect 

 that man in that way, the pile must certainly contain a great 

 deal of richness, under the old idea that we used to have, that 

 good fertilizers must emit a great deal of odor. 



Prof. Johnson. I would say, Mr. Chairman, that the dif- 

 ferences which seem to prevail here with regard to the value 

 of wool-waste are relative. Wool-waste put into superphos- 

 phates, for which you pay fifty or sixty dollars a ton, would 

 be a poor investment as compared with dried blood. Wool- 

 waste is an active fertilizer, and so is cow manure, if you have 

 enough of it. But when you regard its commercial value and 

 relative activity, pulverized wool is a poor ingredient, in a 

 high-priced fertilizer, and a poor substitute for sulphate of 

 ammonia, nitrate of soda, dried blood, or dried fish, because, 

 although it makes a loud disturbance in the neighborhood, it 

 does not do its proper duty so quickly, nor so well as these other 

 materials. The strong odor comes from the fact that wool, 

 like hair and horn, contains four or five per cent, of sulphur. 

 Eggs are also rich in sulphur, and would make a very good 

 fertilizer, but not because of the odor they may occasion. I 

 think Dr. Jenkins' statement is substantially correct, that 

 shoddy waste in a costly commercial fertilizer is an imposi- 

 tion, although not so great a one as leather would be. 



