No. 144.] 475 



From the factories of glue, thousands of tons of liquid phosphates 

 in muriatic acid are annually thrown away. 



A few years since I was witness to this fact, at the large glue 

 establishment of Mr. Hornby, in Hudson street, this city, who 

 informed me that he found it necessary to have carts in readiness 

 to carry the water, while hot, from his boilers Immediately to the 

 river ; in that state it was sweet, but the moment it became cool 

 and gelatinized, the smell arising from it exceeded anything in 

 nature, and was declared a nuisance by persons residing more than 

 a mile from his establishment, in the direction the wind was 

 blowing. I made an arrangement with Mr. Hornby, whereby he 

 consented to load a large north river sloop for me wiih this rich 

 oleaginous substance, if I would name a plan whereby it could 

 be saved for agricultural purposes, in a state free from odor. I 

 suggested to him the use of charcoal dust, and at once obtained a 

 barrel from a neighboring charcoal dealer, into which this boiling 

 substance was poured until it began to diop from a gimlet hole 

 bored just above the chime in the bottom of the barrel ; the 

 experiment was entirely successful, the charcoal duct absorbed 

 the pungent smell, and the mass was perfectly sweet. The bar- 

 rel became a heavy lift for two stout men. Mr. Hornby loaded 

 two large sloops for me, entirely at his own expense, except the 

 price of the dust, and I found it a most admirable manure. The 

 free acids contained in it, combined with the alkalies in theearth, 

 particularly with lime, producing a soluble salt, muriate of lime, 

 which had a very favorable action upon the growing plants, as it 

 attracts water from the clouds fieely, and in dry land supplies 

 the place of gypsum by decomposing carbonate of ammonia, and 

 forming carbonate of lime, and sal-ammoniac. It restores a 

 necessary constituent to the soil, and gives it the power of retain- 

 ing the ammonia which falls in rain water and snow. All soils must 

 inevitably become impoverished, unless the substances removed 

 from them by the growth of vegetation are returned, and the time 

 is not far distant, when solutions of glass (silicate of potash) and 

 various other substances will be manufactured expressly for the 

 farmer. The most important and indispensable substance to be 

 supplied to the growing plant, is nitrogen ; you may furnish every- 



