NITROGENOUS FERTILIZERS. 



9 



Concerning the future of the cyanamide industry, Mr. E. J. Pranke, 

 under date of November 15, 1912, says: 1 



The cyanamid industry is undoubtedly only in its infancy. At present there are 

 four factories in Germany, four in Italy, two in France, and one each in Austria, Nor- 

 way, Sweden, Switzerland, Japan, and America. The American Cyanamid Co. 

 built its first plant at Niagara Falls, Ontario, in 1909, beginning commercial manu- 

 facturing January 18, 1910. Additions to the plant, which will be completed in March, 

 1913, will give a capacity of 25,000 tons per annum, and by the end of the year the 

 full productive capacity of the company, including the extension now under way, 

 should be 50,000 tons per annum. 



TANKAGE AND DRIED BLOOD. 



Tankage is a product from the abattoirs, consisting of the waste 

 materials, such as bones, horns, hoofs, hair, the trimmings of hides, 

 and some blood. After treatment for the recovery of glue the mass 

 is dried and ground and then sold for fertilizer purposes. As the 

 proportions in which these ingredients enter vary, the composition 

 of tankage varies widely. Its nitrogen content is said to vary between 

 the values of 5 and 8 per cent, and its phosphoric acid content between 

 the values of 5 and 12 per cent. Some of the nitrogen of tankage is 

 regarded as unavailable, by which is meant that it is present as a 

 part of nitrogenous matter which is more resistant to the agencies 

 of decay and therefore is only slowly available. The composition 

 of tankage and also the variation in its composition are shown in 

 Table XI, being analyses of three samples from a single abattoir. 2 



Table XI. — Analyses of three samples of tankage from a single abattoir. 



Ingredient. 



First 



Second 



year. 



year. 



Per cent. 



Per cent. 



10.5 



9.8 



5.7 



7.6 



12.2 



10.6 



Third 



Moisture 



Nitrogen 



Phosphoric acid 



Per cent. 

 10.9 

 6.4 

 11.7 



Dried blood is perhaps the richest in nitrogen of all the organic 

 materials used in the fertilizer industry. Unadulterated blood when 

 quite dry contains 14 per cent of nitrogen, but as obtained on the 

 market its content of that element varies from 9 to 13 per cent. 



For a statement of the present output of these materials we are 

 indebted to Mr. F. S. Lodge, who has compiled certain data for use 

 in this paper. In his estimates he makes the assumption, based on 

 observation, that each beef animal in good practice yields 12 pounds 

 of dry tankage and 7 pounds of dried blood; each calf, 2.4 pounds 

 tankage and 0.75 pound blood; each hog, 4.8 pounds tankage and 

 1.2 pounds blood; and each sheep, 1.2 pounds tankage and 0.5 



i J. Ind. Eng. Chem., 5, 159 (1913). 



» Snyder, Soils and Fertilizers (1908), p. 149. 



