CURRENT FACTS IN AGRICULTURE. 4A 
three hundred men were employed in the bays. The oil extracted from 
the fish is used for various purposes; in dressing leather, in rope-walks, 
in painting, mixing with other oils, &c. The scrap is used as manure. 
Last season the product was 7,105 tons of manure, and 11,460 barrels 
of oil. 
Loss from exposure of manure.—Dr. Nichols, of the Boston Journal of 
Chemistry, states that analyses made of manure taken from a water- 
soaked heap, and a similar quantity taken from the barn cellar, showed 
that the former possessed less than one-half of the money-value of the 
sheltered manure. 
Variation in the quality of guano.—In thirteen samples of Guanape 
Island guano, reported on by the British Board of Trade, the propor- 
tion of ammonia varied from 3.8 per cent. to 18.8 per cent. Farmers 
should carefully investigate the quality of the guano offered, before 
purchasing. 
Artificial fertilizers in Germany.—Mr. W. O. Atwater, in an account of a 
visit to one of the principal agricultural regions of North Germany, 
states that wherever he went he heard complaints of the adulteration 
of artificial fertilizers, and of the immense amount of poor material 
palmed off on farmers. German as well as English and French agri- 
cultural journals are full of such complaints. At the agricultural 
experiment stations distributed throughout Germany, and supported 
partly by the government, and partly by agricultural societies, it is one 
of the duties of the chemists there employed to examine fertilizers. 
Farmers buy of dealers, who warrant the fertilizers to contain a certain 
percentage of nitrogen, of soluble and insoluble phosphoric acid, of 
potash, &c. Samples are sent to the experimental stations, and there 
analyzed, generally free of cost. If the fertilizer falls below the stand- 
ard, the dealer must make proper satisfaction to the farmer. By this 
method of test, an efficient check is put upon fraudulent dealing in fer- 
tilizers in the surrounding regions. 
FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. 
Fruit on the Illinois Central Railroud.—Mr. Joseph F. Tucker, general 
freight agent of the Illinois Central Railroad, informs the Department 
that there were received in Chicago, over that road, during the continu- 
ance of the strawberry season, from May 23 to June 9, 1870, 989,476 
pounds of strawberries; nearly 500 tons. The two days of largest receipt 
were May 28 and 30; eight car loads, or 101,571 pounds, being received 
on the former day, and nine car loads, or 115,850 pounds, on the latter. 
In 1869 the fruit business on the Llinois Central Railroad, from Cen- 
tralia and stations south of that place, to Chicago, amounted, in a 
season of fifty-five days, to over 2,500 tons. 
Strawberries in Maine.—Mr. Israel Bemis, of Levant, Maine, during the 
season of 1869, raised, on twenty square rods of ground, 590 quarts of 
Wilson strawberries, which were sold at 21 cents per quart, amounting 
to $123 90. 
Raspberries in Western New York.—Mr. P. C. Reynolds, of Rochester, 
New York, residing four miles from Lake Ontario, states that a neigh- 
bor had two acres, from which he picked 9,500 quarts of Franconia 
raspberries. The fruit was sold in Rochester, and amounted to $750 
per acre. Had it been shipped to New York, the receipts would have 
been doubled. The Franconia raspberry in that locality gave a much 
larger yield than that of the Hudson River Antwerp. 
