334 Annual Report of the Consulting Chemist for 1881. 
through my hands in the course of last year, which were worth 
much less than the price at which they were sold. I would also 
direct attention to the fact that artificial manures sometimes are 
sold under wrong names. Thus, steamed bones, or the refuse 
bones of glue and size makers, are occasionally sold as bone-dust 
at the full price at which raw bone-dust can be bought. The 
purchaser who pays the full price for :|-inch raw bones or raw 
bone-dust, reasonably expects to be supplied with raw bones, 
and not with steamed or glue-makers' refuse bones which contain 
only about one-third the amount of nitrogen found in raw bones, 
and are worth fully 1?. less per ton than the latter. Again, 
purely mineral superphosphates sometimes are sold as bone- 
manures, at much higher prices than they would be likely to 
realise if they were sold under their right names. 
It is true that, in a certain sense, a mineral superphosphate, 
being made from fossil bones, may be called a bone-manure ; but 
in the usual sense understood this term implies that a manure 
contains either raw, or boiled, or dissolved bones, and it is 
clearly wrong to sell a purely mineral superphosphate as a bone- 
manure, especially if it is not a first-class superphosphate and 
is sold at an extravagantly high price. A case of this kind was 
brought under my notice by a gentleman who bought as bone- 
manure, at 6/. 10s. per ton, a mineral superphosphate, which, on 
analysis, had the following composition : — 
Moisture 18' 
Water of combination 8" 
Monobasic phosphate of hme 12 ■ 
(Equal to tribasic phosphate of lime rendered) ^Jo.^,^ 
soluble by acid) J*- ^ 
Insoluble phosphates (mineral) 9 "40 
Sulphate of lime, &c 44*81 
Insoluble siUceous matter 5 "59 
80 
81 
59 
100-00 
Nitrogen None. 
This manure would have been dear at 4/. 10s. a ton, for at 
that price, or even less, good mineral superphosphate, con- 
taining 25 to 26 per cent, of soluble phosphate, can be readily 
bought. 
Artifcial 3Ianures sold much leloio their fair market value. — It 
does not often happen that artificial manures are sold much 
below their real value, but I have had manures sent to me for 
analysis, which, according to their composition, could not 
possibly be sold legitimately, even without profit, at the prices 
at which 1 was informed they were actually sold. 
Thus, not long ago, a member of the Royal Agricultural 
Society sent me two samples, one of which was described as 
