A HUNDRED YEARS' PROGRESS. 303 



three crops of wbeat, clover, potatoes, turnips, &c., "with phospbates ; 

 but tbe form in wbicb they are restored to the soil does not appear to be 

 a matter of indifference; for the more finely the bones are reduced to 

 powder, and the more intimately they are mixed v,ith the soil, the more 

 easily they are assimilated. The most easy and practical mode of effect- 

 ing their division is to pour over the bones, in the state of iine poAvder, 

 half of their weight of sulphuric acid, diluted with three or four parts 

 of water.'' Simple words, and yet they opened the way to the whole 

 system of concentrated fertilizers which has extended so far in modern 

 times and grown to such gigantic proportions as to affect the commerce 

 of the whole civilized world. 



Guano, to be sure, had first been brought to public notice by Baron 

 Humboldt and by Sir H. Da'S';s', but it was not till the researches set on 

 foot by the revelations of Liebig that it was at all used in England. 

 Twenty casks were lauded therein 184:0, and so great was the confidence 

 in its use, as a means of renovating the soil and increasing the products 

 of the country, that the importation increased to 2,000 tons in ISll, and 

 to over 200,000 in 1815, the English trade alone employing, in that year, 

 679 vessels. In less than sixteen years from 18-10 the quantity taken 

 from the Chincha Islands alone reached the enormous figure of 2,000,000 

 tons, and the amount of sales in that time was over 8100,000,000. 



This precious fertilizer soon came to be extensively used in this coun- 

 try. In 1818, we imported over 1,000 tons ; in 1819, over 21,000 tons ; 

 in the ten years previous to 1860 the quantity is reported at 812,787 tons. 

 It is stated that in the ten years previous to 1870 the quantity imported 

 was 387,585 tons, valued at about $6,000,000. But these figures give 

 but a feeble idea of the extent to which special and concentrated fertil- 

 izers now enter into our agriculture, for many large superi)hosphate 

 manufactories now exist in all parts of the country, while a great variety 

 of other special fertilizers are made and offered for sale, some of them 

 no doubt of great value, and others comparatively worthless. 



In order to realize how immensely important these fertilizers have 

 become in our modern agriculture, it is necessary to consider that the 

 South is greatly dependent upon them, more dependent than the Korth, 

 on account of the want of facilities for making and economizing farm- 

 yard manures which the system of stall-feeding implies ; but it is also 

 fast getting to be recognized that they must come in as a necessary 

 adjunct to farm-yard manures in high farming everywhere. And hence 

 if the exact statistics could be known, and the extent to which they are 

 used in all parts of tbe country, the figures would be truly astonishing. 



The official inspector of fertilizers in Georgia, for example, estimates 

 that the planters of that State alone pay over 810,000,000 a year for fer- 

 tilizers, while it is stated, by those in a position to know, that in four 

 months, from December, 1869, to April, 1870, more than 300,000 tons of 

 fertilizers passed through the city of Charleston, South Carolina, that 

 over 100,000 tons passed over the Georgia Central Eailway and other 

 points in that state ; that over 6,000 tons, valued at 87,000,000, are man- 

 ufactured at and sent from Chicago, on an average, every year. It is 

 estimated that fully a half million dollars' worth are used in the State 

 of New Hampshire every year. There are many single towns in Massa- 

 chusetts that use from $25,000 to $35,000 worth, on an average, every 

 year. There are several large fish-guano establishments in Maine, Slassa- 

 chusetts, Ehode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and Vir- 

 ginia, one of which is known to make over 7,000 tons a year. These, it 

 is true, are but isolated facts, but they serve to mark the changes which 

 science has already introduced into our practice. A thousand other 



