PROCEEDINGS OF THE FARMEKS' CLUB. 429 



roughly with one cord of Jersey swamp muck, would throw the 

 whole cord into fermentation. I tried it in all proportions, and 

 it gave me a cord of manure that had all the value of a cord of 

 well rotted stable manure. An analysis of the blood showed 

 that it had all the inorganic constituents that the plant called 

 for. I did not then know what I know now, that in the pro- 

 gressed condition of that blood, it has one hundred times the 

 value of the same quantity taken from original sources. Then 

 having experimentally proved the value of blood, I felt anxious 

 to contrive some means by which it could be dried, as that would 

 improve the process materially. The first machine I used was 

 a series of revolving cylinders filled with steam, over which the 

 blood passed, as printing ink over printer's rollers, until at the 

 last one it was thoroughly dried, and could be scraped from the 

 cylinders. This gave me a powder of blood, which I found occu- 

 pied one-seventeenth of the bulk of the original blood, as it ran 

 from the animal. Here was the equivalent of seventeen cords of 

 manure reduced in bulk to one barrel, provided I had not injured 

 its value by the drying process. I then applied sixteen barrels 

 of water to one of dried blood, and, putting this with seventeen 

 cords of dry muck, it fermented as before ; this proved that the 

 value of blood had not decreased. 



The next step was to ascertain in what part of the world blood 

 could be obtained sufficiently cheap to supply it in large quan- 

 tities. There was a large killing establishment in Galveston, 

 Texas, and a number of others in difierent places ; I sent ma- 

 chinery there to dry blood, but soon found that the drying pro- 

 cess was too expensive. The idea then occurred to me that I 

 could cook the blood in fluids capable of receiving higher tem- 

 perature than water, and press it into masses of convenient bulk. 



By this process it was thrown out in cakes, dry and hard as a 

 brickbat, and perfectly brittle, so that it could be ground to pow- 

 der as easily as any other substance. Having thus obtained the 

 means of procuring a large supply of dried blood, 1 commenced 

 to experiment by mixing it with the Improved Superphosphate 

 of Lime, to produce an early manure; because, by this blood, 

 you can get vegetables earlier than in any other way. 



This dried blood, like all organic matter when subjected to 

 decomposition, will give off disagreeable odors, but by treating 

 it with sulphuric acid, this objection was entirely obviated, and 

 its value remained the same. The results of these experiments 



