FERTILIZERS. 37 



sions I have purchased cargoes of spoiled herring ; in one 

 instance, nine hundred barrels, at the rate of fifty or sixty 

 cents a barrel, which, as a barrel weighs about two hun- 

 dred pounds, would be about five dollars per ton. In some 

 instances the fish are preserved in salt, which adds one- 

 quarter or more to the weight : in others they are fresh, 

 with the oil in them, which does not add to their value as 

 manure, for oil is nearly pure carbon, which is of no value 

 for that purpose ; on the contrary, it hinders, somewhat, 

 their decomposition. Occasionally, during the fall fishing 

 on the fishing-banks near the coast, a supply of pollock 

 will accumulate more than the market can take, when 

 they can be purchased at a price that will make cheap 

 manure. A few years ago, to help sustain the market, I 

 left a standing offer with our fisherman that I would pay 

 twenty-five cents a hundred pounds for pollock : the 

 result was twenty thousand pounds of fine large fish, 

 weighing from eight to fifteen pounds, just out of the 

 water, hauled to my manure heaps. A few years ago vast 

 quantities of waste were made in the heads, sound-bones, 

 and entrails which accumulate at fishing-ports. These 

 were for years dropped into the ocean as refuse. So 

 immense was the waste, that at the Isle of Shoals, off 

 the New-Hampshire shore, the harbors actually became so 

 nearly closed to navigation that the inhabitants on two 

 occasions had to dredge them out. I am told, that, be- 

 neath some of the long wharves of Gloucester, the great 

 fishing-town of the United States, there has accumu- 

 lated an almost immeasurable quantity of this bone refuse. 

 When, a few years ago, the heads, sound-bones, and en- 

 trails became a. market article, I used to buy it at five or 

 six dollars a cord on board the cars : a cord weighs from 

 three and a half to four tons. It was exceedingly cheap 

 manure, but a very disagreeable one to handle, the smell 



