950 Agricultural Journal of Victoria. 



and stable in the growth of crops. The benefits of lime, gypsum, 

 marl and ashes, were known ; but the value and functions of potash 

 and phosphoric acid were not appreciated, and the great question of 

 the use of mineral manures had not yet been brought forward. The 

 renovating efiiect of certain leguminous crops was recognised, but the 

 reasons were unknown. It was Liebig's systematic study of the 

 mineral manures, and his discovery of the action of a mineral 

 acid upon a phosphate in effecting greater availability, which 

 laid the foundations of the great fertilizer industry which has 

 since grown np. The immense potash deposits of Germany, 

 and the nitrate beds of Chili, have, since then, disgorged their 

 millions of tons of material for use in agriculture. Numberless 

 phosphatic deposits have been exploited in all parts of the world, 

 and have been prepared in the factory in amazing quantities, in an 

 available, concentrated, and easily transportable form. The by- 

 products of iron foundries, gas works, and oil cake factories, con- 

 taining valuable fertilizing inanurial ingredients, have been jilaced on 

 the market, and have helped to swell the long list of valuable materials 

 now at the disposal of the farmer for the increase of his crops. 

 This great industry, with its multitudinous ramifications, had its 

 beginnings in the investigations of a few patient laboratory 

 inquirers, who knew probably little or nothing of the actual tillage 

 of the soil. As an example of what the industry has grown to, the 

 following figures are highly suggestive. 



In 1860, there were produced in the United Kingdom, 200,000 

 tons only of phosphatic fertilizers ; while at the present, some 

 300,000 tons of mineral phosphates and about one-third this quantity 

 of bones are required for the ju'oduction of the 800,000 tons of 

 superphosphates etc., which may be regarded as the average annual 

 output of this class of manure. In America, the enormous growth 

 of the industry, in recent years, is still more striking. The value of 

 the total output of artificial fertilizers of the factories in 1859 

 amounted to only £178,268. In the year 1879 it reached a value of 

 £4,730,159 ; while in 1889 the value of the manufactured product 

 was put down at approximately 68,000,000. The Chilian production 

 of nitrates in 1902 exceeded 1,400,000 tons, and the quantity of 

 potassic salts produced in Germany the year previously reached 

 three and a half million tons. 



The Glucose, Starch, and Distilling Industries. 



The manufacture of glucose, starch, and the products of distilling 

 industries, afford other striking examples of the new avenues for the 

 utilisation of agricultural crops, which might be opened up by 

 chemical discovery. Maize, perhaps, is the most important crop 

 grown in the United States, and it partly owes this position, not to 

 its use as a raw product only, but to the various manufactured 

 products derived from it. The average production for the ten years 

 ending December, 1897, was according to Wiley, 1,844,951,786 

 bushels. Out of this quantity, probably over 100,000,000 bushels 



