NITROGEN IN AGRICULTURE. 179 



while the fish blood and meat must first pass through the stage of 

 putrefaction, during which part of the nitrogen is set free in a 

 pure state, and being, in that condition, inert as plant food, is 

 partly lost. This loss has been estimated to be from one-sixth to 

 one-third the total amount of nitrogen contained in the substance. 

 Be the reason what it may, no one fertilizer has given such uni- 

 versal satisfaction as guano. It is, indeed, the standard by which 

 we almost instinctively measure the value of all other fertilizers. 



Farmers, in buying, should remember the difference in quality 

 between Lobos and the -Standard, and should see tliat the price 

 corresponds. I was told of an instance in central Massachusetts, 

 where last season a person mixed a little guano with salt-cake, as 

 the residue of the manufacture of sulphuric acid is called, and sold 

 five hundred tons of the stuff as a fertilizer. He was prosecuted, 

 but, being a law^'er, found some loophole in the law through which 

 he crawled. 



It is proper to state, right here, tliat the fertilizers now in the 

 market into whose name the word " guano" enters, however good 

 they ma}' be, have not, as far as I can learn, a particle of Peruvian 

 guano in their composition. I must also add that dealers in fertil- 

 izers assert that the amount of real Peruvian guano imported is but 

 trivial, compared with the quantity sold as such ; and that some of 

 that imported into this country from England has been found grossly 

 adulterated. All that we farmers can do is to buy it under a war- 

 rant that it contains given quantities of nitrogen, phosphoric acid, 

 and potash. Dealers say that, in bringing the nitrogen up to that 

 required for standard, sulphate of ammonia is used. Assuming 

 this to be true, and that it was not obtained from any organic 

 source, it would be of the same value as if obtained from the guano 

 itself. From tests I made on grass land I found that Peruvian 

 guano started the grass earlier than did an equal amount of sul- 

 phate of ammonia applied at the same time, side b^' side, on an 

 equal area. Tliis satisfied me that its nitrogen was not derived 

 wholly, if at all, from waste fish or meat. 



Ten years ago the New York Agricultural Society took up the 

 matter of the adulteration of Peruvian guano, purchased eleven 

 bags of as many dealers, and had them analyzed. The result gave 

 values differing from $38.33 to $107.68, though each was sold at 

 the same price per ton. In the report of the Connecticut Agricult- 

 ural Station for 1881 it is stated that while Peruvian guano used 

 formerly to contain not more than one or two per cent each o 



