COMMENDATIONS. V 



NO. IV. 



OUR HOME PHOSPHATES. 

 From tlie Charleston, S. C., Courier: 



The manufacture and sale of Superphosphates under theii 

 many different names and varied experimental value have become 

 of such importance in this country as to warrant steps being 

 taken, not only to protect the planter from injustice, but also in 

 the interest of the honest dealer who does give value received 

 for money paid. The different Governments of Europe whom 

 we are in the habit of calling slow, have long ago said that 

 parties selling these articles shall affirm the constituents of their 

 compounds and guarantee their proportions, in order that parties, 

 whose general knowledge of chemistry may be sufficient for 

 ordinary purposes shall, when they wish to use an organic or 

 mineral constituent as the food of their crop, get what they pay 

 for, or have the means of redress. 



Our attention has been forcibly called to the subject by a care- 

 ful perusal of a book laid upon our table purporting to be Amer- 

 ican Manures, their money value, by James Bennett Chynoweth, 

 late Superintendent of Fertiliser Works, and William H. Bruck- 

 ner, Ph. D., Analytical and Consulting Chemist, Philadelphia. 

 A careful perusal will repay the planter and farmer, also those 

 interested in the sale of Superphosphates. It is written in plain 

 language and devoid of the symbols and technical character of 

 the terms of Science. It is especially due from our Charleston 

 manufacturers of Superphosphates that they give as wide a cir- 

 culation as possible to the public of the valuable information 

 conveyed in this publication. 



If one-half of what is told of the many subterfuges and false 

 proportions put upon our planting community by our Northern 

 manufacturing friends is true, the market of the United States is 

 in our hands, and we only need to use the resources which Provi- 

 dence has committed to us and their proper development, which 

 ordinary intelligence should give, in order to obtain that con- 

 trolling influence in our markets, which the possession of in- 

 exhaustible beds of Native Bone Phosphate entitle us. In any 

 event, the natural course of trade ought in time to give us this 

 control ; but with the impetus which this description of facts, 

 properly ventilated, should produce, Charleston ought at one 

 bound to step to the front rank, in the United States at least, as a 

 manufacturer of fertilizers. 



We have taken the money value to the consumer of fourteen 

 of the fertilizers mentioned in this publication, the names of 

 which were most familiar to us, and some of whom are as house- 

 hold words over the Cotton States, and to find it to vary from 

 four 96-100 dollars for the lowest value up, with variations to 

 thirty-six 93-100 dollars. These fertilizers are sold at the place 

 of manufacture at from forty-five to fifty-six dollars per ton of 



