104 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



analyzed, and publishing, as I did, the journal in which these 

 analyses were published, I can speak with a knowledge of 

 the facts. Almost immediately after the publication of these 

 analyses, and so soon as it was fairly known throughout the 

 community by the vendors that their manures were liable to 

 be picked up and subjected to the crucible of a disinterested 

 chemist, it was difficult to find very poor manures. At first 

 they were easily enough found. There was no end to the 

 manures which were absolute frauds upon the farmer ; the 

 trouble was to find those which were not. But the quality 

 improved very much, so that after a while it really seemed as 

 though the makers of those manures were doing their best to 

 put upon the market a fair article, at a fair price. Although 

 their prices were a little higher than we could figure, according 

 to the standard which I have laid down, (which at that time 

 was considerably lower than the standard which I have just 

 named to you, of twenty cents for ammonia, and five cents 

 for insoluble phosphoric acid, and fourteen cents for soluble,) 

 nevertheless, the gain to the farmers was very great. It was 

 so great that, after those facts were published, it has always 

 seemed a wonder to me that every State in the Union, or every 

 influential agricultural society, has not employed some com- 

 petent chemist, and kept in this way a thorough look-out upon 

 the manure market, and so prevented these frauds. 



I have a memorandum of the prices at which manures of very 

 fair value may be obtained in the city of New York, and will 

 name them. Peruvian guano, in quantities of fifty tons, may 

 be bought of the government agent at the rate of sixty-two 

 dollars and fifty cents in gold, per long ton, or about ninety 

 dollars in currency. Phosphatic guanos vary in their compo- 

 sition very much. Some of the best, containing from sixty to 

 seventy per cent, of bone phosphates in a ton of two thousand 

 pounds, may be bought for about forty-five dollars. Superphos- 

 phate of lime, which is a compound manure, as you are aware, 

 containing but a small quantity, really, of superphosphate, — 

 that is, the soluble phosphate of lime, — may be bought for about 

 fifty-five dollars. That is a fair price. Fine-ground bones for 

 about forty-five dollars. Flour of bone, a manure which has 

 been quite extensively sold within the past two or three years, 

 at about sixty dollars a ton, is not now in the market, owing to 



