266 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



available to the roots that find it. But the fine dry fish is easily spread, 

 is diffused by rain, is thus made accessible to a large number of roots, 

 and can be absorbed by them when they reach it. 



8. The ingredients of fish may be made more available for plant-food 

 and their value for manure increased by — 



a. Fermentation with urine. 



6. Composting with muck, earth, ashes, lime, bone, potash salts, and 

 farm refuse of all sorts. 



c. Feeding to stock, thus putting it through a process similar to that 

 by which Peruvian guano has been formed. In this way it can be used 

 to enrich the manure made on the farm, and thus made one of the best 

 aids to successful farming. 



Fish as food for stock. 



9. The chief defect of our fodder materials as a whole is their lack of 

 nitrogen. From poor manuring our crops are not only small in quantity, 

 but poor in quality. They lack nitrogen. This is true of our forage 

 crops in general, and of poor hay, straw, and corn-stalks in particular. 

 What our farming most wants, to make stock-feeding profitable, manure 

 plenty and rich, and crops large and nutritious, is nitrogen. 



10. One of the cheapest, most useful, and best forms in which this 

 can be furnished is in fish products. These have been found very 

 profitable for feeding in Europe. Our fish guanos are better than the 

 European for this purpose, because they have more flesh and less bone. 



The loss to our agriculture from waste of fish. — The evil. 



11. Millions of pounds of fish not fit for human food are allowed every 

 year to escape from nets into the sea, which, if saved and rightly uti- 

 lized, would be worth untold sums for fertilizers and feeding materials. 



12. Of the fish saved and used for fertilizers, a large portion is ill- 

 prepared. 



13. A large part of that which is well made is exported to Europe, 

 where its value is better understood, and its use is more rational and 

 profitable. 



14. A great deal of the fish manure that gets into farmers' hands, be 

 it well or ill prepared, is wasted by wrong application, and by use where 

 it does not fit the needs of crop and soil. 



15. A still greater loss comes from the neglect to use fish as food for 

 domestic animals. 



16. The total loss to our agriculture from all these sources is not 

 capable of accurate computation, but amounts certainly to hundreds of 

 thousands, and doubtless millions of dollars annually. 



The remedy. 



17. As the main source of the evil is ignorance, the chief reliance for 

 cure must be in better understanding of the facts and the ways to im- 

 prove. 



