278 



FERTILIZERS. 



Charleston, who has had a more extensive ex- 

 perience in the matter than any one else, and 

 to verbal information received from him. As 

 to the real extent of the deposits which can be 

 worked to advantage, we at present are not 

 fully informed, for the industry is still in its 

 infancy. The existence of vast beds of phos- 

 phorite was known before the war, but they 

 were not worked till after its close. This 

 material is found in many places on and near 

 the sea-coast, but the larger part hitherto mar- 

 keted has come from the region lying to the 

 north and northwest of Charleston between 

 the Cooper and Stono Rivers, and from the 

 region at the head of St. Helena Sound on the 

 Bull and Coosaw Rivers northeast of Beaufort. 



"It is essentially a phosphate of lime soft 

 enough to be got out with shovel and pick. 

 The land deposits occur in a stratum from six 

 to fifteen inches thick, though averaging not 

 more than eight inches, and where worked do 

 not lie more than six feet below the surface. 



u There are also submarine deposits consist- 

 ing both of loose material brought down by the 

 current, and of fine regular strata. This is 

 known in the market as ' river rock.' 



"The rock is always washed, drained, and 

 dried somewhat before shipment, and some 

 firms dry their material thoroughly by piling 

 it up under cover around tubes which are sup- 

 plied with hot air. Hot-air dried cargoes at 

 present make up more than half the total 

 amount shipped. 



" The extent of the industry is indicated by 

 the following figures : 



"There were shipped from Beaufort and 

 Charleston the following amounts of crude 

 phosphate: In 1875, 122,790 pounds; 1876, 

 132,626; 1877,163,220; 1878,210,323; 1879, 

 199,365; 1880, 190,763; 1881, 266,734." 



Apatite. Very large deposits of the mineral 

 apatite have been opened in Canada, and are 

 being utilized for the manufacture of super- 

 phosphate. It is said, however, that the bulk 

 goes to England, the market rates being at 

 present such as to make other materials, as 

 South Carolina phosphates, cheaper for our 

 home use. The apatite, however, makes an 

 excellent fertilizer, and the supplies are, for- 

 tunately, very extensive. 



Bone-Manures. Of these, the most impor- 

 tant are bone, raw, boiled, and steamed, bone- 

 black, and bone-ash. Bone is offered to the 

 farmer almost everywhere and in a great va- 

 riety of forms, and is, perhaps, more widely 

 used than any other concentrated manure. 

 Raw bones contain from 3J to 4 per cent of 

 nitrogen, and from 20 to 25 per cent of phos- 

 phoric acid. Steamed bone is generally a little 

 poorer in nitrogen and richer in phosphoric 

 acid, while bone which has passed through the 

 glue-factories contains often but a small frac- 

 tion of one per cent of nitrogen, and may run 

 as high as 30 per cent of phosphoric acid. Bone- 

 manures vary in mechanical condition as well 

 as in composition. Very fine-ground bone 



acts quickly, but coarsely ground bone, espe- 

 cially if greasy, is one of the slowest of fertili/ers 

 to decompose in the soil and furnish its mate- 

 rial to the plant. Adulterations of bone with 

 intent to defraud are not frequent. A great 

 quantity of very coarse bone is used, but boil- 

 ing and steaming, which remove the fut and 

 make the bone friable and easily ground, is 

 becoming very general, and the result is a great 

 improvement in the quality of bone-manures. 

 The spent bone-black from sugar-refineries 

 furnishes a small but constant supply of mate- 

 rial, not suited for direct application to land, 

 but much prized as a basis for superphosphate 

 because of its fineness and convenience for 

 treatment witli sulphuric acid. Even when 

 genuine bone-black is out of the market, manu- 

 facturers bent on satisfying their customers con- 

 tinue to turn out this popular superphosphate 

 by a judicious mixing of mineral superphos- 

 phates and lamp-black. Bone-ash from South 

 America is occasionally found in the markets. 



Potash and the German Potash Salts. 

 The question whence the potash for the de- 

 pleted soils of the world was to come, was for 

 years a serious one with chemists and agri- 

 culturists. Wood-ashes were a very limited 

 and withal costly source, and did not supply 

 enough for use in manufactures and other than 

 agricultural arts. The extraction of potash 

 from orthoclase feldspar and from sea-water, 

 though feasible, was too costly. The solution 

 of the difficulty was found a few years ago in 

 the discovery of the potash deposits in the re- 

 gion of Stassfurt, in Germany. This accumu- 

 lation of salts has come from the evaporation 

 of sea- water in past geologic time. The proc- 

 ess of evaporation, whose cost, when carried 

 on by artificial means, would be so great, has 

 been provided for by nature on an enormous 

 scale, and we have the products in the depos- 

 its referred to. Commencing near there but a 

 few years ago, the use of potash salts as fertil- 

 izers has already become almost universal in 

 Germany, has extended largely into other parts 

 of Europe, has reached to the impoverished 

 fields of our own country, and even to the cof- 

 fee-plantations of Brazil and Ceylon. The 

 amount used has increased from a few hundred 

 to many thousand tons per year. The Stass- 

 furt fertilizers have excited an interest and 

 reached an importance comparable with that 

 to which Peruvian guano attained years ago. 

 The results of a great deal of experimenting 

 and experience indicate that the usefulness of 

 these salts as fertilizers depends not only upon 

 the character of the salts themselves, of which 

 there are various grades, but also on the kind 

 of soil, the mode of application, and the kind 

 of crop. Properly used on soils deficient in 

 potash, they are extremely beneficial and prof- 

 itable. A singular fact in connection with the 

 Stassfurt mines is that the potash compounds 

 were at first thrown away. The mines had 

 been opened for the sake of the salt, of which 

 they supply immense quantities. On the layer 



