36 BULLETIN 
USES. 
FERTILIZER. 
Fish scrap, from the inception of the industry, has met with great 
success as a fertilizer, until to-day it constitutes one of the main 
sources of organic nitrogen used in the fertilizer industry. Its nitro- 
gen is in a form from which it is readily rendered available by the 
bacterial and other action taking place in the soil. The organic mat- 
ter, which serves as the carrier for the nitrogen, in fish scrap as in 
other organic nitrogenous substances is a beneficial adjunct not 
enjoyed by the inorganic nitrogenous substances. 
A small amount of fish scrap is used directly as fertilizer without 
admixture with other fertilizer ingredients or fillers. Its success 
when used alone has not been unqualified. Its continued applica- 
tion has led to a condition of the soil in which it would no longer 
respond to that fertilizer. A larger portion is mixed ( ; ' manipu- 
lated ") by the manufacturers of the scrap to form a so-called com- 
plete fertilizer and is sold, generally locally, under brand names. 
During the past year (1912) about 10,000 tons were thus employed. 
This practice is growing. 
By far the larger proportion of the output of the East is sold di- 
rectly or through the medium of brokers to the larger manufacturers 
of fertilizers, by whom it is worked up into the various grades of 
finished goods marketed by them. 
CHICKEN FEED. 
This use of fish scrap at present is so slight in the East as scarcely 
to deserve mention. Only a few tons, and these by a small number 
of chicken growers, are thus utilized; but the success of those so 
using it, evidenced by their yearly increasing orders, would seem to 
justify its exploitation by experiment stations and its trial by other 
poultry raisers. 
The following paragraph is quoted, with excisions, from Goode : x 
At a meeting of the Maine Board of Agriculture and Farmers' Convention, 
Mr. Wasson gave an interesting account of the use of " pogy chum " as a 
food for sheep and poultry, stating that he had used it for five years. * * * 
Sheep thus fed showed an average increase each of one pound and a quarter 
of wool, while they were constantly fat and brought heavy lambs. Hens also 
ate the scrap with avidity. Boyd stated that hens, ducks, and turkeys preferred 
it to corn, and became large and heavy when fed upon it. It is customary 
to discontinue the scrap and feed them on corn three or four weeks previous 
to killing them. 
CATTLE FEED. 
The use of fish scrap as a feed for cattle has met with such success, 
seemingly, in those instances where it has been tested that it is sur- 
prising that its adoption for this purpose has not become more 
1 Loc. cit. Cf. pp. 140-141. 
