270 [Assembly 



localities ; hence the deficiency must be made up wherever it 

 occurs by these changes, from other sources. Farmers must look 

 abroad for the article, and with this as with most other things 

 that are essential to their comforts and the prosperity of their 

 business, buy it wherever they can get it cheapest or best and 

 purest. Here I think it my duty to make known (as I have done 

 on previous occasions,) the hazard farmers run in buying not 

 only this article of phosphate of lime, or bone- earth, but most 

 other special manures. It is the imperative duty of this Club, 

 located as it is, in something like a watch-tower, this great com- 

 mercial city, whenever good information arrives from any quarter 

 for the farmers of the land, to announce it, that they may avail 

 themselves of it, if they see fit. It is equally its duty, too, when 

 evil threatens the same important interest, no matter from whence 

 it comes, to sound the alarm, that it may be shunned, if thought 

 proper. One of the latest London periodicals brought us an 

 account of the official proceedings of a meeting of the Farmers' 

 Club of London, in March last, on the important subject of the 

 adulteration of special or artificial manures. Among those most 

 adulterated, or where the practice has prevailed to the greatest 

 extent, are phosphate of lime (the very article under discussion) 

 and guano, and the reason why these had been selected for such 

 abominable frauds is that they are most in demand and most 

 wanted. Professor Nesbitt, chemist of the Royal Agricultural 

 Society of England, who lectured before the Club on the subject, 

 says that Professor Way, who stands high as a chemist, found on 

 analysis, the best Peruvian guauo to contain seventeen per cent» 

 of ammonia. He (Professor Nesbitt) had examined many sam- 

 ples of guano, and only a few had come up to that ; generally it 

 contained from fom-teen to fifteen per cent. There may have 

 been good reasons for this difference : guano is sometimes dete- 

 riorated on the voyage, or in putting it on board of ships. The 

 professor further states that ordinary Peruvian guano contains 

 from eighteen to twenty-two per cent, of phosphate of lime. 

 Ammonia and phosphate of lime are by far the most valuable 

 ingredients of guano. The professor also examined many speci- 

 mens of adulterated guano. Some of them contained only a 

 trace of ammonia, and ten or twelve per cent, of phosphate of 



