358 



PRACTICAL GARDENING. 



This guano must, as Dr. Ure remarks, have been mnch decom- 

 posed, and perhaps originally a debased sample. It leads to 

 no particular knowledge, and therefore little can be gathered 

 from it. 



Dr. Ure has exposed a fraudulent analysis, by which many 

 hundred tons were sold at a public sale, and at a high price. 

 He found the guano nearly rotten and effete. The false and 

 real constituents are given side by side as below. 



-Urate of ammonia, ammo- ) 



niacal salts, aud decayed > 17.4 

 animal matters . . . . ) 



Phosphate of lime, of mag- 

 nesia, and oxalate of lime 



Fixed alkaline salts . . . 



Earthy and stony matter 



48.1 



10.8 

 1.4 



Moisture 22.3 



100.0 



2. — Ammonia .... 2.5 



Urate of ammonia . 0.5 



Earthy phosphates . 45.5 



Sea-salt 9.0 



Water 24.0 



81.5 



Here the deficiency in Dr. lire's result must be supplied by 

 the items, sand, dirt, and rotten organic matter, of no more 

 value than so much very old dung reduced to dust. This 

 was, however, an excellent specimen when compared with the 

 adulterated rubbish which has been palmed upon agricultural 

 credulity. Every one who has minutely inspected genuine 

 samples must know that they are all brown in colour, the 

 tint varying from that of Scotch snuff, interspersed with 

 lumpy and white particles, to a deeper hue, according to the 

 quantity of existing moisture. Hence there is no difficulty 

 in substituting loams of various shades and temperaments. 

 These, with a portion of decaying sawdust and a few pounds 

 of fine guano (perhaps not one-twentieth part), to confer 

 odour, would pass muster, so far, at least, as the unpractised 

 eye might decide. In short, no one ought to attempt the 

 use of this potent manure as pure without full assurance of 

 the quality. 



ANALYSIS OF VAEIOUS IMANUEES. 



Notwithstanding all that has been written and said of the 

 various manures which are used in the dressing of land, and 

 their effects upon crops, scarcely two chemists give the same 

 analysis of any compound body, and this chiefly because they 

 give the result in different states, some intelligible, some not, 



