Chemical Report. 
LSI 
price at which they were offered for sale. Most of the compound 
manures analysed mig-ht be readily obtained by the farmer, at a 
much cheaper rate than they are sold, by mixing together in 
certain proportions well-known manuring matters, such as guano, 
sulphate of ammonia, dissolved bones, salt, &c. ; but if he prefers 
to buy the mixture ready made, he is strongly recommende<l 
to have the manures analysed, and to have ascertained whether 
the intrinsic value of the fertilising constituents of the compound 
manure corresponds with the price at which it is offered for 
sale. 
Sulphate of ammonia has been largely used in the past season, 
and with good effects both for wheat and grass crops. The 
demand for sulphate of ammonia, moreover, has greatly increased 
of late, it having been found remarkably efficacious for sugar- 
cane, and for the cultivation of beet-root on the continent. 
In consequence of the exportation of sulphate of ammonia to 
the sugar-growing colonies, and to the beet root districts in the 
north of Germany, the price has gone up from 121. iQs. to 111, a 
ton, and with it the price of all ammoniacal and nitrogenous 
manuring matters has risen considerably of late. There is, there- 
fore, no probability that Peruvian guano will become cheaper, 
the chances being that it will go up, if its quality continues 
to remain pretty constant. 
Damaged Peruvian guano is eagerly bought up by dealers in 
artificial manures at its full market value, and afterwards fre- 
quently mixed with some kind or other of phosphatic material, 
and again sold at a good profit under an assumed name, such as 
Coral Island guano, phosphatic guano. South Sea guano, &c. 
Although such mixed natural guanos may be used with advan- 
tage as manures, especially for root-crops, upon which they often 
have a more beneficial effect than genuine Peruvian guano, it is, 
nevertheless, not to the benefit of the consumer to encourage this 
species of adulteration. 
The coprolite beds of Suffolk and Cambridgeshire are gra- 
dually becoming exhausted or too expensive to work, and the 
quality of coprolites has become of late somewhat deteriorated. 
Whilst there is every prospect of the coprolite beds in England 
becoming practically exhausted at no very distant period, it is 
satisfactory to find that new sources of supply of phosphatic 
minerals are constantly being discovered. 
Large quantities of Sombro rock phosphate and Navassa 
guano, and the more recently discovered phosphorite in the valley 
of the Lahn, in Nassau, and some cargoes of Spanish and Cana- 
dian apatite, now find their way into England, and no fear need 
be entertained that British agriculture will suffer from want of 
the principal raw materials from which superphosphate and 
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