348 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
to provide for them ; and they will possibly buy 
up the new islands of guano phosphate, if it may 
be so called, at a higher rate than they need pay 
for super-phosphate of lime manufactured at 
home from bones, coprolites, apatite, and phos 
phoric rocks. But the question arises whether 
or not large quantities of such manures can be 
brought and sold at a price which shall not ex 
ceed the home cost of super-phosphate of lime 
This may be doubted, although Saldanha Bay 
guano has been sold at £4 10s., but not very 
extensively or direct, to consumers. There is 
difference between the price first-hand from im 
porter to dealer, and that from the dealer to the 
farmer. Still the first importer will never get 
more than fd. or Id. per lb. for his phosphate 
at which price the English tradesman can man 
ufacture it for his own use from the substances 
above named; and although some few ships 
might be found which would take in guano as 
ballast from the southern seas, &c., still it is 
hardly credible that the shipping interest would 
find it worth while to send vessels expressly on 
long voyages for an article which could not real 
ize a higher price than that above mentlbned 
If this be true, it being also established by the 
laborers in the field of agricultural chemistry 
that the wheat grower is to seek nitrogen in am 
monical manures, which these new discoveries 
certainly are not, the conclusion only remains 
that the void in the supply of guano has yet to 
be filled up. Doubtless, the foregoing, among 
other considerations, led to the proposition 
which emanated from the Royal Agricultural 
Society of England to give one thousand pounds 
and the ’’gold medal of the Society for the dis¬ 
covery of a manure equal in fertilizing proper¬ 
ties to the Peruvian guano, and of which an un¬ 
limited supply can be furnished to the English 
farmer at a rate not exceeding £5 per ton. 
Great doubts have been expressed whether any 
person who had made such a discovery would 
be induced, for a premium of £1000, to guaran¬ 
tee the sale, in unlimited quantities, for £5 per 
ton, of an article equal in value to the Peruvian 
guano, which bears a market value of £9, and 
which, according to the Society’s own scale, is 
worth intrinsically more money. As a matter 
of course the manure sold for £5 must be sup¬ 
posed to be made for less, and it is difficult to 
imagine that he who should for about £4 10s., 
become possessed of 
388 lbs. of Ammonia, worth, at Gd... .£9 14 0 
540 “ Phosphate “ Ofd.... 1 13 
784 
Potass 
2Jd. 
0 14 8 
2 5 
Or, altogether.£12 
would dispose of it for £5. 
It is now proposed to describe the fisheries 
guano of Mr. Pettitt, discarding, for the time 
being, the question of its superseding Peruvian. 
Mr. James Caird, well known as the Agri¬ 
cultural Commissioner of the Times, has forcibly 
remarked that the number of acres of wheat in 
England is five millions, ancf that is exactly the 
number of quarters of wheat and flour annually 
imported; and that, by the application of 2 cwt. 
of guano to each acre, the deficient quarter of 
produce might and ought to be raised. Were 
this advice acted on to a very moderate extent, 
there would be evidently required 500,000 more 
tons of fertilising matters annually—a quantity 
which would give a fair field for all the guano 
dealers, all the manure inventors, and all the 
sewerage purifiers in this country. It appeal’s 
needful, in illustrating Mr. Pettitt’s proposition, 
to consider the following points or queries:— 
1st. Can the fish guano be made of use and 
value ? 
2nd. Can the raw material, fish, be obtained 
in sufficient quantities ? 
3rd. Can the process be carried out at such 
cost as to leave a profit ? 
4th. Will there be a sale for the article when 
made? 
To the first query, supposing the science of 
agricultural chemistry, as at present established, 
to be sound, the following analyses furnish an 
answer:— 
By 
Analysis I. 
Professor J. Thomas Way, of the Royal 
Agricultural Society. 
Analysis of a sample of manure from Mr. Green, 
received March, 1853. 
Per cent. 
Moisture. 4.28 
Oily matter. 19.78 
Other organic matter and salt of ammonia 62.14 
Sand, &c. 2.27 
Bi-pliosphate of lime, equal to 3.12 neu¬ 
tral phosphate. 7. 2.11 
Neutral phosphate, insoluble in water... 0.61 
Hydrated sulphate of lime. 5.00 
Alkaline salts and loss. 3.81 
100.00 
Nitrogen 9.14 per cent.—equal to am¬ 
monia 11.09. 
Analysis II. 
By Professor Way. 
Analysis of manure (No. 201) from Mr. Horace 
Green—received 29th March, 1853. 
Per cent. 
Moisture. 4.93 
Oily matter. 3.42 
Other organic animal matter and salts of 
ammonia. 84.94 
Sand, &c... 1.35 
Phosphate of lime. 0.39 
Phosphate of potash and sodium, with a 
little chloride of sodium. 3.67 
Sulphate of potash and soda. 1.30 
100.00 
Nitrogen 13.82 per cent.—equal to am¬ 
monia 16.78. 
Total quantity of phosphoric acid equal to 
phosphate of lime, 3.36 per cent. 
Analysis III. 
By Lewis Thompson, Esq. M. R. C. S., Con¬ 
sulting Chemist. 
Per cent. 
Organic matters, containing 12.9 parts of 
ammonia, equal to 50.1 of Sulphate 
of ammonia. 72.50 
Inorganic matters, containing 23.2 parts 
of phosphate of lime and 2.2 of alka¬ 
line of salts. 25.40 
Moisture. 2.10 
100.00 
The alkaline salts contained some potash. 
Analysis IV. 
By J. C. Nesbit, Esq., Consulting Agricultural 
Chemist. 
Analysis of sample of fish manure from Mr. 
Pettitt, 145 Upper Thames street. 
Per cent. 
Moisture. 3.68 
Organic matter and salts of ammonia.... 74.82 
Silica. 0.30 
Phosphate of lime. 15.84 
Phosphoric acid, soluble, equal to 0.8 
phosphate of lime. 0.39 
Alkaline salts and phosphate of lime.... 4.97 
100.00 
Nitrogen, 9.31 per cent.—equal to am¬ 
monia, 11.29. 
Here are three specimens before the meeting. 
Their intrinsic value, according to the scale 
before alluded to, is as follows:— 
Of No. 1.£9 12 9 
Of No. 2. 9 2 6 
Of No. 3. 9 7 7 
or a mean of £9 7s. 7 d. per ton, derived princi¬ 
pally from ammonia, the mean yield, of which, 
in the three specimens, is £6 11s. 4 d. per ton. 
The manufacture of this guano, on a large 
scale, will be carried on by a process of the 
following nature:—A given weight of fishy 
matter is placed in a large tank, and sulphuric 
acid of commerce added to the mass. This 
may be called the digestive process, for the 
action of the acid is so powerful as speedily to 
j reduce the organic matter to a soft pulpy con¬ 
sistency, resembling in appearance the foecal 
matter of the birds. This pasty mass being 
placed in a centrifugal drying machine, and the 
superabundant moisture forcibly driven off, the 
partially dry matter is now submitted to a heat 
not exceeding 212 deg. Fahrenheit, supplied by 
warm air or steam, and afterwards pulverised in 
a suitable manner. In this process, the oily 
matter of the fish separates itself, and swims 
upon the surface of the liquid, hence it can be 
easily separated, and forms an important item 
in the economy of the manufacture; since, tak¬ 
ing all kinds of fishy matter, we obtain an 
average of 3 per cent, of oil, worth £25 per ton, 
or, as will appear hereafter, three-fourths of the 
whole expense of the raw material. 
Another process might in some cases be 
adopted with advantage, especially with cartil¬ 
aginous fish, such as skate and dog-fish, namely, 
by submitting a given weight at once to the 
drying process by warm air or steam heat, and 
then moistening with dilute sulphuric acid, 
which, in this case, acts simply as an antiseptic. 
But this process is rather more expensive, and 
is therefore only useful with cartilaginous mat¬ 
ter, on which it is found, by experience, that 
acid hardly acts. 
There is another form of fishery manure, and 
a most interesting one~ reference being had to 
the manufacture in Ireland. It consists of a 
mixture of fish reduced to a pulp by acid, and 
dried by the admixture of peat charcoal. In 
this form all the nitrogenous liquids, spun out 
by the former process, are retained, and there 
is full half in bulk of a very pure form of carbon. 
“Powdered charcoal,” says Liebeg, “surpasses 
all other substances in the power which it pos¬ 
sesses of condensing ammonia. Within its pores 
it absorbs 90 times its volume of ammonaical 
gas, which may again be separated by simply 
moistening it with water. It is not only a slow 
and constant source of carbonic acid, but it is 
also a means whereby the necessary nitrogen is 
conveyed to the plants.” Now, carbonic acid 
may be termed the breath of plants, and they 
inspire it as animals expire it. By the processes 
of decomposition and recomposition, the carbon 
of charcoal arrives at the form of the fat of a 
prize beast; hence, in like manner as ammon¬ 
aical manures are suitable for wheat, the staff 
of man’s life, so are manures like this, rich in 
carbon and phosphate of lime, the element of 
bone, the most valuable of stimulants for green 
crops, the staple food of our beasts. The sim¬ 
plicity of the preparation of this manure should 
enable it to be sold at a low cost; and the pre¬ 
paration of the charcoal makes another branch 
of industry which might receive fresh impulse 
from the carrying out of Mr. Pettitt’s scheme. 
(To be continued.) 
- 6 Q 6 - 
THE WESTERN HOG TRADE. 
The demand for Hogs in western markets has 
increased during the past week, and an advance 
in price has been the result. In view of the 
high prices of provisions generally, we need not 
be surprised that pork should be affected. The 
prospect of a steady market encourages the 
dealers, and will prolong the packing season. 
The receipts for the week ending January 31st, 
were 9993, according to the report in the Cin¬ 
cinnati Gazette ; owing, however, to the increased 
activity in the market, the report is not quite 
full to date. 
The following extracts from Western journals 
will furnish some particulars: 
Hogs. —The killing season is almost over. 
The number packed here will not range much 
from our former estimates, viz.: 124,000 to 130,- 
000 .—Madison Courier. 
The Lafayette (la.) Journal gives the number 
packed at that point at 21,000. 
Hogs.—W e notice but few drovers in our 
streets, and infer that hogs arc not arriving so 
abundantly as in the previous week. This may 
