62 FERTILIZERS. 



I sometimes use sulphate of ammonia to hurry along 

 crops of onions that are rather backward ; spreading two 

 hundred pounds per acre just before they begin to bottom, 

 and working it into the soil with a slide-hoe. 



CASTOR-POMACE is a waste from the West, being the 

 cake left after the oil has been pressed from the castor- 

 beans. In using it, care should be taken to keep it where 

 animals cannot get at it. The men who spread it ought to 

 walk with the wind ; for, though not poisonous, it is a very 

 disagreeable customer for either the eyes or mouth. It 

 is a favorite manure for tobacco. I have used car-loads of 

 it in former years on general crops, with good results. 



AZOTIN, AMMONITE, TANKAGE. The first two of these 

 are animal wastes, which have been exposed to the vapor 

 of naphtha to extract the grease. (Of late years glue- 

 waste, of which, in its crude state, for years I used from 

 one to two hundred cords annually, is also so treated.) 

 The residue is dry and brittle, and rich in ammonia, and 

 every way superior for fertilizing purposes to the same 

 substances before treatment. These are not usually found 

 in the retail market, but are purchased by manufacturers of 

 fertilizers at prices based on their per cent of nitrogen and 

 phosphoric acid, as shown by analysis in each lot offered 

 for sale. Job lots of from five to ten tons can sometimes 

 be purchased of brokers, or from great slaughtering estab- 

 lishments like that of Armour & Co. of Chicago. Tankage 

 is a waste product from the intestines and other parts : 

 it contains more or less of bone, easily crumbled, and is 

 not uniform in fineness. 



DRIED BLOOD is the blood of the slaughter-house with 

 most of the moisture dried from it, leaving it in good me- 

 chanical condition for handling. It is very rich in nitro- 

 gen, and is largely used by manufacturers of fertilizers. 

 There are two grades, the light and the dark colored; 



