436 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



tlieir purchased bones to be ground, thus securing an uuadultcniLed 

 bone-flour. 



The guano sunphj. — Dr. Voelcker reports to the English Eoyal Agri- 

 cultural Society that the supply of guano of good quality from the 

 Peruvian islands will probably be abundant for many years. 



Sea-u'ecd as a fertilizer. — Professor S. W. Johnson, in presenting sev- 

 eral analyses of sea-^veed made in the laboratory of the Sheffield Scien- 

 tific School, shows that a fertilizer formed of dried and pulverized sea- 

 weed and fish-guano, in the proportion of 1,970 pounds of the former to 

 30 pounds of the latter nearly resembles stable-manure in composition, 

 but is much more concentrated, so that one ton of the mixture is nearly 

 equivalent to five tons of stable-manure. Mr. George E. Waring, of 

 Newport, Rhode Island, states that the farmers of his neighborhood pay 

 61 to $1.50 per ton for sea-weed and haul it four or five miles. Large 

 quantities of rock-weed are sold in Xew London and Stonington, Con- 

 necticut, and intermediate places for the same prices. 



It should be remembered, however, that sea- weed which has been long- 

 subjected to the washing of the waves, or to exposure to the sun in small 

 quantities, is worth comparatively little as a fertilizer. 



Applications of burned day. — Mr. Mechi has found burned subsoil an 

 excellent and profitable application on cold tenacious clays containing 

 very little calcareous matter. When he took his farm he burned thou- 

 sands of loads, putting 80 loads per acre on some fields, and the effect 

 of the application is still shown after the lapse of twenty-eight years. 

 But it is his practice to repeat the dressing after a certain number of 

 years. The clay should be well dried before burning, and when the 

 heap has been made red-hot it will continue to burn the earth which is 

 gradually added to it. The alkalies are set free by this burning and are 

 made available for crops, especially roots, and the calcined material, 

 worked into the soil, brings it into a comparatively friable condition. 

 The method may be considered as a short way of attaining a condition 

 of soil ordinarily reached by long cultivation. This dressing costs him 

 about one shilling per ton, applied. 



Fisli oil and guano. — Kew York papers of August, 1872, stated that, 

 during the two weeks ending the 17th of the month, the waters of Long 

 Island swarmed with menhaden. One fishing company took 1,300,000, 

 realizing 81 per thousand ; another took 3,000,000. One company had 

 rendered 5,000,000 into oil and guano during the season, not running 

 to its full capacity. The price of the fish, formerly 60 cents per hun- 

 dred, had been reduced to $1 per thousand ; yet the fishermen asserted 

 that they could make money at the latter rate if they could sell their 

 whole catch. But only about one-third had been taken by the factories. 



Potash in corn-cobs. — Dr. Herbert Hazard says there are 7.G2 xjarts of 

 carbonate of potash in 1,000 parts of corn-cobs. 



Cottonseed on sugar-land. — Mr. G. G. Zenor, a planter near Patter- 

 sonville, Louisiana, last year made 65 hogsheads of sugar from 35 acres 

 of old prairie-land, of which 12 acres, fertilized with cotton-seed at a 

 cost of $15 per acre, in'odnced 35 hogsheads, or nearly 3 hogsheads per 

 acre, the remaining part of the field producing less than IJ- hogsheads 

 per acre. Thus the surplus product of I5- hogsheads, or 2,000 pounds, 

 per acre involves an additional cost for fertilizers of about three-quar- 

 ters of a cent per pound. 



Loss of ammonia by exposure. — In a recent experiment lien-manure 

 allowed to dry slowly in the air lost in one month five-sixths of its am- 

 monia, indicatiDg the value of applications of gy])sum or other ])reveu- 



