Proceedings of the Farmers'* Club. 855 



however, as valuable as a good grade of guano. It may be used in 

 mucli the same manner as guano, except that being less soluble in its 

 nature, it will not be carried readily into the ground by rain or 

 moisture, and should consequently be well incorporated into the 

 ground ; for the same reason it may be found somewhat slower in its 

 action than guano, and proportionately more lasting in its effects. It 

 may be mentioned in this connection, that in England fish have 

 been employed as manure in considerable quantities. The kind most 

 extensively employed is the sprat, which is canglit in immense quan- 

 tities on the coast of Xorfolk, and is prhicipally applied in the cul- 

 ture of turnips. A chemical analysis of this fish gives their 

 composition as sixty-four and six-tenths per cent of water, thirty- 

 three and three-tenths per cent of organic or nitrogenized matter 

 capable of yielding ammonia, and two and one-tenth per cent of 

 potash and other mineral salts. "VVe may now turn to the considera- 

 tion of the phosphatic fertilizers, among which guano, already dis- 

 cussed, may be said to occupy a middle rank, its phosphoric acid, as 

 has been mentioned, in some cases being in excess of its ammonia ; 

 but this substance needs no further mention here, other than that its 

 phosphoric acid, in proportion to its quantity, acts in the same man- 

 ner as the so-called phosphates and superphosphates, of which we are 

 about to treat. Phosphorus, which constitutes the base of the phos- 

 phoric acid, so essential to the growth of vegetation, is one of the 

 elementary substances, and occurs primarily in the granite rocks. 

 As the rocks are worn and disintegrated in the formation of soil, the 

 phosphorus, in combination with oxygen and constituting the phos- 

 phoric acid just mentioned, is liberated and, in solution in water, is 

 carried into the structure of plants, entering more particularly into 

 the composition of the seeds, which frequently contain from thirty 

 to thirty-five per cent. When the plants are eaten by animals the 

 phosphoric acid is deposited, to a slight extent, in their flesh, but in 

 large quantities in their bones and cartilaginous structure, where it 

 exists in combination with lime as the phosphate of lime. For all 

 practical purposes, whether manurial or other, for which this sub- 

 stance is employed in arts, and in industries, it is obtained from such 

 animal organisms. Tlie latter are often thousands of years old, as 

 in the case of the fossil remains found in the crag formation 

 and in the green sand-stone in the south of England and in 

 many parts of our own country. These consist in the remains 

 of bones of sharks and whales and great lizards, which are 



