FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
117 
tance the freight rate makes the cost per 
unit run up so the goods cannot be used 
to advantage very far from the garbage 
plants, 
FISH SCRAP. 
Fish has been used as a fertilizer long 
before any other material. The New 
England Indians were the first to discover 
the value of fish as a source of fertilizer. 
They buried a fish .at the base of a hill of 
corn with the idea that the spirit of the 
fish would enter the corn stalk and en¬ 
courage it to produce a larger yield. They 
were satisfied of this fact because they 
knew that a hill of corn under which re¬ 
posed a good-sized fish gave a more 
abundant yield than when no fish was put 
there. 
The fish scrap produced now is quite 
a different article from what it was ten 
years ago. The old method of handling 
the fish was so crude and the stench so 
great that the factory was almost un¬ 
bearable to all except those constantly 
working in it. Their methods were 
crude and the fish was usually dried by 
the sun after coming from the kettle. It 
frequently happened that before the fish 
was thoroughly dried a rain would come 
and wet it and the flies would blow it 
and it would become a putrified mass. 
When this class of material was finally 
dried and sacked it is no wonder that 
the odor was not only penetrating but 
very objectionable to anyone. Under 
the present method for quick handling of 
the fish and the quick process of drying 
it, it is delivered in perfect shape with¬ 
out an objectionable odor, no more ob¬ 
jectionable than the smell of dried her¬ 
ring. 
Fish scrap is a byproduct in the manu¬ 
facture of Manhattan and fish oil. The 
oil is the finest article sought after but 
the scrap has proven to be of such value 
as a fertilizer that the revenue from same 
goes a long ways towards keeping the 
balance on the right side of the ledger. 
Fish scrap produced at the present time 
very seldom analyzes below 9 per cent, 
ammonia and frequently as high as 12 
per cent. So great has been the demand 
for fish scrap that whale meat from the 
whaleries has been saved and made into 
whale tankerage or whale meat, which 
like fish makes a splendid source of am¬ 
monia for general farm crops, especially 
where it can be applied and worked into 
the ground. Anyone who has once be¬ 
come acquainted with the odor of fish 
scrap or whale meat tankerage can read¬ 
ily detect it, not only when they are us¬ 
ing it themselves but when their neigh¬ 
bors are using it some distance away. 
, HOOF AND HORN 1 MEAL. 
Hoof and horn meal has been used for 
a long time as a source of ammonia and 
yields in the neighborhood of 18 per cent. 
If the ammonia were quickly available, 
this w r ould be an excellent source, but un¬ 
fortunately it takes some time for hoof 
meal to decompose and give up its am¬ 
monia. The hoofs and horns of the 
slaughter houses, after being steamed and 
ironed out and the better parts cut out 
and saved for the manufacture of “tor- 
toise-shelU combs, the balance is ground 
and sold as hoof meal. It is sometimes 
mixed with blood and bone to bring up 
the percentage of ammonia. For long- 
feeding crops, or for use on moist land, 
the hoof meal is an excellent source of 
ammonia. It decomposes slowly and 
there is no danger of its being leached out 
by moisture, consequently it can be used 
on land where nitrate of soda or sulphate 
of ammonia would be a loss. On the 
other hand, if it were applied on quick 
