438 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 
We are in the transition state of agricultural theory and practice; we 
may at present believe that Liebig and Ville and Lawes have under- 
estimated the value of humus and of barn-yard manure, and have over- 
estimated those soluble saline preparations which Ville’s chemical 
manures contain; but these men are still working out their problem, 
and if successful in proving their position they will have dashed our 
idols to the ground, and as converts to the new faith we shall have no 
desire to raise them, The science as well as the practice of agriculture 
is progressive. 
CURRENT FACTS IN AGRICULTURE. 
FERTILIZERS. 
Manufactured fertilizers at the South.—A letter to the Department from 
Mr. Lawrence Sangston, president of the Maryland Fertilizing Company, 
of Baltimore, Maryland, gives some idea of the extensive use of manu- 
factured fertilizers at the South. He states that during about four 
months from December, 1869, to April, 1870, 30,000 tons of manufactured 
fertilizers passed through Charleston, over the South Carolina Railroad, 
avout one-half of which was manufactured in that city. During the 
Same period the Georgia Central Railroad carried from Savannah 47,000 
tons; and about 25,000 tons were forwarded from other ports in Georgia, 
South Carolina, and North Carolina, making a total of 102,000 tons, 
bearing a valuation, at points of delivery, of $7,000,000. 
A large number of companies and individuals, near Charleston, South 
Carolina, are engaged in mining and preparing crude phosphates for ship- 
ment. Mr. Sangston says: ‘The South Carolina phosphates are fast sup- 
planting those of the West Indies. Being similar to the ordinary bones 
or bone-ash of commerce, they dissolve more easily and in weaker acids 
than the mineral or volcanic phosphates of the West Indies, and their 
comparative freedom from iron or alumina enables the manufacturer to 
produce a better article’at no greater cost. They are used exclusively 
in the Charieston manufactories, and in fully three-fourths of those in 
the Northern States they are used wholly or in part. Nearly every ship 
loaded at Charleston with cotton for Europe takes two to three hundred 
tons as dead weight; and occasionally entire cargoes are sent to England, 
Scotland, and Ireland. Large orders for France and Germany were 
unfilled at the commencement of the European war. A recent Spanish 
paper states that— 
There is about to be built in Valencia an establishment for the manufacture of 
‘miners’ artificial guano.” This new product, which is composed of South Carolina 
phosphatic deposits, subjected to a treatment of sulphuric acid and sal ammoniac, is 
destined to become a formidable rival of the Peruvian guano, large quantities of 
which are consuimed in that province. 
Shipments of fertilizers from Chicago.—A recent statement of the 
amounts of manufactured fertilizers shipped south and east from 
Chicago during several years past shows the annual average to be 6,000 
tons. ‘The material from which these fertilizers are manufactured is in 
very large proportion furnished by the slaughtering establishments, of 
that city. 
Imports of guano.—The first cargo of guano imported into this country 
was received about a quarter of a century ago. The demand grew 
rapidly, and in the year ending June 30, 1848, the receipts amounted to 
1,015 tons, inereasing in the following year to 21,243 tons. During the 
