Annual Rejwrt of the Consulting Chemist. 
259 
An examination of the appended Summary, and its com- 
parison with the Returns of analyses in 1871, will show that the 
analyses in 1871 were raised to an exceptionally high number 
by an unusually large number of cake and guano samples which 
were sent to me in that year. The abundance of green food in 
the past season no doubt rendered many farmers less dependent 
upon purchased food, and brought transactions in cakes and 
feeding-meals to their normal condition : in consequence, the 
unusually large number of 212 cake examinations made in 1871 
was reduced to 165 in 1872, which, however, is an increase of 
11 samples over the number of cakes examined by me for 
Members of the Royal Agricultural Society in 1870. 
In the preceding year, as many as 78 guanos were sent for 
analysis, or 36 more samples than in 1872. The difficulty of 
procuring Peruvian guano in a cry powdery condition and of 
good quality, guaranteed by analysis, induced not a few who had 
long been in the habit of employing guano to substitute for its 
use nitrate of soda and various artificial manuring compounds, 
which appear to have reduced considerably the consumption of 
Peruvian guano. 
Whilst the samples of guano were less numerous in the past 
season than in the preceding, fully as many artificial manures 
were referred to me for analysis in 1872. 
By far the larger number of artificial manures examined by 
me in 1872 were well prepared and intrinsically valuable fer- 
tilisers, and comparatively speaking only few were not worth the 
money at which they were sold. 
Bone-dust is getting dearer from year to year, and much diffi- 
culty is experienced in obtaining it clean and pure. Bone-dust 
is often mixed with glue-boilers' refuse-bones and bone-turners' 
refuse-dust, which although useful in their way, vary much in 
quality and composition, and for that reason should be sold 
separately for what they are worth, and not be mixed with fresh 
bone-dust. 
Chincha Island guano being exhausted, the Peruvian Govern- 
ment agents now ship guano from the Guanape Islands. Nearlv 
the whole stock in England has been imported from these 
islands, and only a few cargoes have lately arrived from Macabi 
Island, situated in the neighbourhood of the Guanape Islands. 
As far as I can judge from the examination of the cargoes of 
Macabi guano that have arrived here, it possesses about the same 
composition and general character as Guanape guano, and for all 
practical purposes may be considered as equal to the latter. The 
present importations of Guanape guano are drier and not so 
lumpy as a good many samples which were submitted to me for 
analysis in the preceding season. On an average, I find Guanape 
