APPENDIX. 



I. OBSERVATIONS ON FISH -GUANO. 



" THE importance of this field of industry has been fully appreci- 

 ated in France, and a factory has been established at Concarneau, 

 in the department of Finisterre. A full report of a visit to the 

 factory having been made by the distinguished chemist M. Payen, 

 and the well-known agriculturist M. Pommier, to the French Agri- 

 cultural Society, we purpose presenting our readers with the chief 

 points contained in that report, in the hope that another year may 

 not pass over without some attempt of the like kind being made 

 upon our coasts. 



" The experiments which led to the establishment of the factory, 

 of which we are now to speak, were made by a M. de Molon, and 

 have extended over a period of four years. On several occasions he 

 had employed the offal obtained in the preparation of sardines, on 

 the coast of Brittany, to manure his land in Finisterre. The results 

 which he obtained led him to imagine that this offal, and a multi- 

 tude of marine fish of little commercial value, might furnish an im- 

 portant resource to agriculture. This fact, observed since a long 

 time, especially in countries where deep-sea fishing is a permanent 

 industry, was not new ; but such a manure was by its very nature 

 restricted to the agriculture of the coasts fish or fish- offal not 

 being capable of being economically transported more than short 

 distances. It is also evident that these materials should be imme- 

 diately employed that they are not susceptible of preservation, and 

 that the manure not admitting of being applied to the soil, except 

 at certain seasons, it must at once be evident that the employment 

 of fish-offal, spite of its richness in fecundating elements, could never 

 be generalised, or offer large resources to agriculture. 



