HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN MENHADEN. 485 



provided it is diinible, whicli cannot yet bedeteriniiie<l. On some pints 

 of Long' Island those lish are taken in seines, and carted six and seven miles 

 for the purpose of manure, and is found to be very profitable business. 

 Mr. Glover relates a circumstance which is curious, and conGrmssome 

 experiments made by Dr. Priestly, and at the same time shows that you 

 derive less benefit from those fish when exposed to the air than when 

 covered with earth. Pie made a heap comi)Osed of those fish and earth 

 in the manner above related, near a fence where a field of wheat was 

 growing on the ojjposite side. The wheat near the heap soon changed 

 its color and grew luxuriant ; and at harvest yielded nearly double the 

 quantity of the other part of the field. He is confident that the 

 wheat could derive no nourishment from the heap or compost by its 

 being washed by rains to the ground ou the other side of the fence where 

 the wheat grew, and could be affected only by the effluvia arising from 

 the putrefaction of the fish and absorbed by the leaves of the wheat.* 



2. Letters from Prof. C. A. Goesstiumn, on tlie agricultural value of men- 

 haden fertilizers. 



Amherst, Mass., October 6, 1877. 

 Dear Sir : In answer to your favor of the 2d iust., requesting me to 

 state whether my views regarding the character and the agricultural value 

 of the menhaden fish-fertilizers aie fully expressed in my official reports, 

 I take pleasure to reply that my third annual report, which is published 

 in the twenty-third annual report of the secretary of the Massachusetts 

 State Board of Agriculture (1875 to 1876), contains the most detailed 

 exposition of my opinions regarding that subject. Well-prepared fish- 

 refuse from our menhaden fish-rendering works are justly considered 

 equal to the best branch of our home manufactured nitrogenous phos- 

 phates in commercial and agricultural value. Fish-fertilizers repair to 

 some extent the injury which agriculture sufi'ers from the customary 

 wasteful sewage system of our large cities ; to secure an increased sup- 

 ply is worthy of the most careful consideration from an economical 

 stand-poiut. The due appreciation of our fish-fertilizers suffers still from 

 their variable composition ; they differ quite frequently largely in moist- 

 ure, and are, as a general rule, too coarse to secure speedy action. A 

 more uniform mode of rendering and a more satisfactory mode of dry- 

 ing and griudiug are very desirable for obvious reasons. To separate 

 the rendering business from the manufacture of the fertilizers promises 

 better chances for the removal of the present difficulties. I am in- 

 formed that a patent has been secured to abstract the fat more thor- 

 oughly by some chemical process — I presume by means of bisulphide of 



* Commi-.nications made to the society, relative to manui'es, by Ezra L'Homtnedieu, 

 esq. <^ Transactious of the Society for the Promotion of Agriculture, Arts, and Man- 

 ufactures, instituted in the State of New York. Vol. I, 1801, jjp. 65-67. 



