Fish Manures. 19 



yield more than 150,000 tons of a manure nearly equal in value 

 to the guano of the Peruvian islands, which now furnish annually 

 from 300,000 to 400,000 tons. If to the manure which might 

 he obtained from the cod-fisheries of the Lower Provinces, we add 

 that of many ether great fisheries, we are surprised at the immense 

 resources for agriculture now neglected, which may be drawn at 

 a little expense from the sea, and even from the otherwise worth- 

 less refuse of another industry. To this may be added vast 

 quantities of other fish, which at certain seasons and on some 

 coasts are so abundant that they are even taken for the express 

 purpose of spreading upon the adjacent lands, and which would 

 greatly extend the resources of this new manufacture. The oil, 

 whole extraction is made an object of economic importance in the 

 fabrication of manure from sardines, in France, exists in but very 

 small quantities in the cod, but in the herring it equals 10 per 

 •cent, of the recent fish, and in seme other species rises to 3.0 and 

 4.0 per cent. 



Mr. Duncan Bruce of Gaspe has lately been endeavoring to 

 introduce the manufacture of fish-manure into Canada; but he 

 has conceived the idea of combining the fish offal with a larce 

 amount of calcined shale, under the impression that the ma- 

 nure thus prepared will have the effect of driving away insects 

 from the plants to which it is applied. He employs a black 

 •bituminous shale from Port Daniel, and distilling this at a red 

 heat, passes the disengaged vapours into a vat containing the 

 fish, wfeich by a gentle and continued heat, have been reduce! 

 to a pulpy mass. The calcined shale is then ground to powder 

 and mingled with the fish, and the whole dried. Experiments 

 Wiade with this manure appear to have given very satisfactory results, 

 audit is said to have had the effect of driving away insects when 

 applied to growing crops, a result which may be due to the 

 small amount of bituminous matter iu the products of the distil- 

 lation of the shale, rather than to the admixture of the calcined 

 residue. Coal-tar is known to be an efficient agent for the des- 

 truction of insects, and in a rocent number of the journal, Le 

 Coxmos, it is stated that simply painting the wood-work of the 

 inside of green-houses with coal-tar has the effect of expelling 

 from them all noxious insects. Mr. Bruce caused several analv- 

 ses of this shale to be made by Dr. Reid of New York, from 

 which it appears that differerent specimens contain from 2-0 to 

 260 per cent, of carbonate of lime, besides from 1*4 to 2*0 per 



