The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1865-07-04 00:00:00

Correzponbente.

MR. MOTILE'S EARTH SYSTEM.
To the Editors.

In a recent number of the Telegram I read an
article taken from the Agricultural Gazette on the
subject of Mr. Moule's earth closets. The writer is
of opinion that the plan of using dry earth could be
easily curried out in country plane, or detached
houses, and that a considerable quantity of valuable
manure for gardens might be collected by this
system. The writer goes on to say that earth will
probably never take the place of water in theme of
towns or streets of houses. Now I have had
opportunities of seeing the earth system tried,
although on a different plan from Mr. Moule's. It
was in this way : a vault or privy, about five feet
deep was thoroughly cleaned out, and the dry
material (in this case mostly ashes) was thrown in
daily instead of throwing it in the 'ash-pit. The
floor was Made to take up eanly. At the end of
a-year the plane was fall of a portable manure that
could have been taken away in manure bags. It
was, however, thrown into • cart, and used for
drilling the same day. I believe with Mr. Moule,
that the true way to deal with this valuable manure
is to prevent its accumulation in large quantities by
applying a sufficient quantity of drying or absorbing
material daily, by which means it mires itself.
Some persons at first sight may object that the
trouble is too great. This is a fallacy. It does not
take up two minutes • day, and the advantage in
taking away the smell is worth all the time, to say
nothing of the value of the manure. The system of
pouring the refuse of towns into the streams has been
roved to be wrong in principle, and that which is
'w‘rong in principle cannot be right in practice,
Whether on • small or large scale. The great
ichemist Liebig, has denounced the wasteful system
of taking certain elements from the soil, and sending
it down the riven to the sea. The people of this
country consume three-fourths of the produce of the
land, wheat, barley, beef, mutton, pork, kn., and
legricultural chemistry tells us that the value of
la4nure depends entirely upon the quality of the
frood consumed. If a small portion of the money
now used to fetch guano (for which Liebig declares
the farmers are giving a fancy price, nearly double its
actual value') was turned in this direction, I think
the result would be aatisfactory, and that which is
now considered • nuisance would be applied to its
proper use, and bold at its proper valne.—l so,
yours truly. ..•

TH3 PAW PAILLUIIIgre. ....1... 71 .
" Members when they first take their ersaisMintrek
Parliament are not unapt, tinder the persuasion that,
they are safe, to play fast and loose with pledgee uttered
and implied, and to treat their constituents a little dg;
haul es Oa& But as year after year steals on they be., i
come more guarded in what they do and say, and at
last, with a dissolution inevitable before them, they take '
care, if it be their purpose te stand again, that both i
their votes and epeechos shall be each as their condi.,
tuents are likely to approve. Now it has been exactly
as the Parliament grew older, and especially as it,
approached the term of its natural We, that the Colufer I
vatimo, latent all along in its composition, MIMI,*
light. Had Mr. Baines brought forward his mflde'
last year, he would have commanded a larger measure
of support than was given to him sig weeks ago.
Had he introduced his Bill two years ago, the _
chanom are that he would have carried the 'second
reading by a small majority. This year the House, Tenni= Finn In 1101.13011X—NUELT THIRTY
rerogniting how the poles of the constituency HOU81:11 BURNT.—Last week a tremendous fire broke
I
beats, has rejected his proposition by a majority larpr out in the vicinity of Brook-street, Holborn, adjacent to
In point of numbers—in the weight attaching to the Fornivars Inn, and raged with terrific fury throughout
names which compose it, more important by far—than the whole night, destroying in its caner the whole of
has accepted or rejected any other measure sines the the extensive warehouses of Messrs. Masking sad Co ,
Parliament entered upon the discharge of its legislative the upholsterers at the oorner of Brook-street and
=. Now we cannot bat regard this fact as 44 140:64ikesiides doing very wipe. damns to twenty
in no smell degree, for the return of the., and hildhop in the neighbourhood. ,
'n 001 • • J,, .
6:I •414,44‘AitQJ •14 cuALLi. u... 1 eiA4ad o 4.4 x,•dglii , ' ' '''' '" ..
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Act;

W. 0. K.

NATURAL HISTORY OF GITANOS.—No. 111.
[Cosriwuln TROY AORICOUITEAL GA7JSTTE.]
Me following is another pass-ige front one of a short
course of lectures lately delivered by Mr. Wallace
Fyfe, before the Royal Agricultural College.]
We have already adverted to the circumstances
under which guano was introduced into notice
in this country in 1841. In July of that year
it was that Lord Stanley, now Earl Derby, men-
tioned it at the dinner of the Royal Agricultural
Society, at Liverpool. Cargoes shortly after-
wards began to arrive, and in October, Liver-
pool and London agents were at work with long
explanatory circulars recommending it to our
agriculturists. An eminent Glasgow merchant,
who, unhappily, was in the habit of thrusting
many of his letters received in the course of
business into his capacious breeches pockets, is
said to have received a circular enclosing a
sample of the article neat as imported, which of
course began to give off fumes of such an in-
sufferable character that the bearer ineontinently
thrust his fingers in to see what he had got, but
the ammoniacal salts had melted the paper, it
was soft and tender, and the fingers of the
Glasgow merchant encountered what he believed
to be the corpus delicti of an infamous hoax.
He threw the foetid package away. It was,
however, picked up and perused, and laid no
small part of the foundation of the impetuous
importer's fortunes.
The agricultural, like the mercantile experi-
ments, first made with this extraordinary
fertiliser, were only too flattering, and gave rise
to a rage of specelation in both directions. In
mercantile enterprise some South-western African
traders having discovered excrementitious
deposits on various secluded points, particularly
on the island of Ichaboe, an egg-shaped barren
rook bare of soil, denuded of vegetation, about
1,200 yards in circumference, and situated about
three miles from the mainland, with superficial
formations supposed to consist of the accumulated
voidances of seal, gannet, and penguin (a helpless
bird, that teiii talk and fight with you—hence
what the sailors call "talking like a penguin,"
instead of getting out of the way), commencing
from about six feet above high-water mark, and
rising to the configuration of the island—the
island in the course of a few seasons was com-
pletely cleared. Any guano now obtained from
that quarter—and there is still an occasional
parcel in the market—consequently consists of
the annual deposits mixed with sand and other
matters.

Pi. remarkable substance is found on Monk
Island, near Idaraeaybo, in the Gulf of
Venezuela, in large rocky maws like guano
that had undergone a change from volcanic
action. It is wholly employed in the manu-
facture of phosphate of lime, and contains an
excess of phosphoric acid beyond other natural
phosphates. The values scoorcling to the tables
stand at £7 17s. 5d., £B, and £7 13s. Bd. Bird
Island lies west of St. Vincent, W.I. Its
guano, which is of little manurial value, is
estimated at £2 Bs. 3d. per ton. Mexican guano@
are also low in character, running front
£3 7e. Bd. to £2 9s. The Kooria Mooria
Islands, Halki, Sudo, Halabi, Deriabi, and the
islet Rodando, lie in a line east and west, five or
six Naples from the coast of Arabia. The values
of the guano. obtained thence in 1867 were
£6 7a. 3d., £3 lie. 10d., £6 3s. Bd. ; and in
1858, £2 6s. Bd., £2 7s. 5d., £2 14a., £3 2a. 3d.,
£2 12s. Bd., £3 12a. 10d., and £4 2.. Other
varieties of guano come from the Red Sea. .Tarvia
Island,of five miles in circumference, covered with
low shrubs, underneath which is found guano, lice
due south of the Sandwich Islands; the value
of its guano is £3 10a. Sombrero guano has
excited some attention because of the attempt
to imitate Peruvian by manufacturing (and why
not?) phospho-Pernvian from its phosphatic
matter with ammonical additions. The sub-
stance itself ia not a guano but a mineral
phosphate ; yet it has been entered at the
Custom House as a guano. Sombrero is situated
60 miles distant from St. Thomas, one of the
Virgin Isle'. The whole, as far as can be ascer-
tained, appears to be one mass of phosphatic and
calcareous tufa, with dykes and bosses of solid
phosphatic matter-the latter in some instances
protruding to the surface for thousands of square
yards together, or from one-half to three-fourths
of an acre divested of tufa. The colour of the
rock is usually a dirty white varying to yellowish
, green, grey, and even pink. Forty thousand
tons of this matter obtained from the island had
been already used up in the United States, simply
ground and put upon the land, before we began
to import it. In this country it is valued ac-
cording to the tables at £6 86., £6 91. Bd.,
£5 18a. Bd., and £6 is. 5d., and its proper
office is conceived to be as a bards for superphos-
phate of lime. We have still to speak of the
Patagonian and Shark's Bay guanos. The former
Patagonian, and. the Falkland Islands is necessarily
much deteriorated by rains, but its values are
very conflicting; £2 7s. Bd. (18560 £5 35. 10d.
(1857,) £2 16s. 3d., and £6 Os. 10d. (1858)-w.
while the Shark's Bay, all the way from the
islets and rocky coasta of Australia, can only be
Imported at a freight diaproportioned to its
values, which in 1851 were £2 16a. 3d.; in 1853,
£4 18a. 3d.; and in 1854, £5 10a. 10d. Per-
haps the two so-called guano., which at present
excite the moat attention---but they are not
guano., only the most remarkable bases for the
manufacture of auperphosphate-are the apatite,
which we derive from Arundall in Norway, and
the Estremadura phosphate from Spain. The
apatite had long been known as a mineralogical
curiosity, and aa a remarkably-pure mineral of
phosphate of lime. The exigencies of agricul-
ture and the discovery that it was accessible in
quantity for shipment from the above-named
place in Norway, have introduced it extensively
in commerce. But it has met with a most for-
midable rival in the Spanish Estremadura phos-
phate, which is finer and more fibrous in its
texture than the apatite, the apatite being more
crystaline and hard, and therefore lees sus-
ceptible of solution in sulphuric acid. (Apatite
is principally a phosphate of lime; Estremadura
a phosphite.) The latest news I have to tell you
regarding this substance looks so like double
dealing on the part of the Government of Spain,
that I confess I tremble for the future of those
guano supplies on which we have so seriously
accustomed ourselves to depend, and feel as if an
attempt were about to be made to force us to
embrace, instead, the Eatremadura mineral. You
may be aware that owing to some financial dis-
pute betwixt Spain and Peru, the Chinch&
Islands were recently seized by the former in
naltiafaction of their demands. The information
I now have on the subject a that the Spaniards
still retain possession, and what is akin to keepin
tooaseeeion is the fact that the labourers have
been expelled. In this country, where the use
of guano has become unhappily a necessity, the
supply seems at this moment therefore on the
point of ceasing. Are we then dostined to have
la guano famine, as we have had a cotton famine,
from the sheer force of that commercial spirit
Iwhich makes and which keeps us dependent for
supplies essential to our state of civilisation on
other regions of the earth? I do not know.
But wisdom enjoins us to look earnestly around
for a substitute in case of need. In England
Itself we possess large beds of phosphatic manures,
particularly in the coprolites of the greensand
and crag formations of Cambridgeshire. Abroad
also, as we have seen at Monk's Island and else-
where, fresh discoveries of this valuable mineral
have been maSe. But it is this particular con-
juncture which the Spanish Government has
embraced with a zeal which, I confess, appears not
altogether above suspicion, to force upon our
attention the deposits of phosphate of lime which
exist at Estremadura. Under their auspices a
joint-stock company has been formed for the
fuurrPiee meocesfrosie,fuatynrndisiPahroincifgueegasosutpiropWnli,easylobefmit:hsilgt thineasseychuietremhat:st
already gained the confidence of a vast number
of our most eminent agriculturists. A railway
from Badajoz to Lisbon renders the inland trans-
port to the sea extremely easy ; and we may
expect to find the substance imported in very
large quantities indeed.

The same may be said of the Bolivian already
mentioned. At first the importations were
equal to Peruvian ; now, they are much lower
in quality. And, indeed, the only samples of
the Lobos Islands qualities which have reached
us, are about upon a par with these second-class
guanos. Nor can we expect the first-class kinds
to appear, so long as the chief arrangements exist
at the Chinches. What Professor Anderson
said at Kelso last year was this "Peruvian
guano must always be the most important of all
artificial manures, because any cessation of the
import would have the effect of enhancing
the price of all other manures, and more
especially sulphate of ammonia and nitrate of
soda, which would rise enormously in price."
. . . . As regards the supply of phosphated
guano, there is little available information. The
best is Bolivian, which is imported in large
quantities, though little of it comes to us. There
is a very valuable kind containing about 60 per
cent, of phosphates and 1 or 2of ammonia,
which merits more attention from farmers than
it has received. The great objection ta these
guanos is their want of uniformity, and this tells
still more with the inferior kinds, such as Bird
Island, Kooria Mooria, dm. Mr. Nesbit, whose
tables of analyses and "History and Properties
of the different Varieties of Natural Guanos"
form the best manual on the subject, enumerates
besides the Peruvian, Ichaboe, Bolivian, and
Lobos Islands guanos, those of numerous other
sources of importation, giving their several
analyses and an estimate of their value, arrived
at by calculating their organic matter at Li value
per ton; phosphate of lime, £B, and its soluble
equivalents, (phosphoric acid), i'24 per ton;
alkaline salts, £1 per ton ; and more especially
nitrogen as equivalent to so much ammonia, at
£6O per ton. Calculated by this rule, which
affords perhaps as near an approximation of
value as practice can require, he places Angamos
guano at the head of all in point of value; being
in fact the muck coveted first class Bolivian
so frequently referred to, and describing it as the
most recent deposit of the birds collected by
hand with much difficulty and danger from the
bare surfaces of precipitous cliffs; having suffered
no decomposition it frequently contains from 20
to 24 per cent, or more of ammonia, It will be
seen from this statement, however, that it bears
no relation to the other Bolivian. The latest
estimate of value, according to Mr. Nesbit's
Tables, is £l5 12s. 10d. ; but some has been
obtained valued at upwards of £l7. In some
cargoes are hard saline lumps, containing, in fact,
50 per cent, of common salt; and these lumps
are valued at only £3 sa. 10d. The deposits on
the Chinch% Islands, the largest in the world, he
tells ua are towards the S.W. more exposed to
the sea spray, and have lost a certain amount of
ammonia, but have not yet been imported in
quantity; many samples are slightly dis-
coloured, but still equal in value to the
paler, having suffered no other change. Of
the analyses of 50 samples, the values adduced,
save those of some damaged samples, are not
under £l3, many £l4, more £l5, and some almost
£l6 (£l5 19s. 3d.) ; and the mean of the whole
50, £l4 Is. 10d., commercially and intrinsically
speaking. The analytical value of Ichaboe
Immediately after its first discovery appears to
have been £9 is. ; common Bolivian ranges
from £6 to £7, and even that imported in 1858
to £8 15s. sd. per ton valuation; Lobos £7 10s.
in 1853, and £ll 4s. sd. in 1858. That from
the large deposit of Pavillon de Pica, on the
coast of Peru, the fine £9 6s. 3d. and £8 Be. 10d.
and the dark £7 15s. 10d. ; Chillian guano,
of much the same character, £7 4s. 3d. ;
Californian, from £7 10s. and £8 6s. 10d.
down to £3 17s. Bd., all imported in the same
year-1858. Paths Island, Lower California,
resembling Ichaboe and the Elide Island guanoa,
and no favourite in the market, have a value of
from £8 Bs. &I. down to £5 3a. 3d. and £5 21. 3d.
in the tables. These are the first and second-
class guano, Those' of the third-class include
guanos which have lost nearly all their ammonia,
and contain little more than earthy phosphates.
Of this class the Saldanha Bay guano has been
found useful for Turnips. Its estimate of value
is £6 10s., £Bs. 10d., and as low as £4 18s. sd.
as imported in 1852 and 1854, whilst that im-
ported in 1858 is according to the tables valued
at only £3 3a., guano from Algoa Bay at £2 25.,
and the South African £2 3s. The West Indian
guano, from the islands of the Carribbean Sea, an
atmosphere very different from that of the
seaboard of Peru, has its soluble matters washed
out by rains and tempests, and left only
phosphates of lime and magnesia, sometimes I
intermixed largely with sand. Pedro Keys Islets,
The resorts of birds on the coast of Cuba, furnish
the beat, valued at £40.. 3d. ; West Indian is
valued at £2 5..; Swan Island, £2 17s.
but that of Baker Island, West Indies, is equal
to £7 12s. 10d. ; and Newnan, a thilkly-wooded
island, half-way between Jamaica and St.
Domingo, whose guano is found somewhat
under the surface, is purely phosphatic, the
nitrogenous components having been lost,
leaving a value of £515.. 10d. anki4.l4a. 134

TRIAL OF Ds. PRITCHARD. —The trial of Dr. E. W.
Pritchard, of Glasgow, for the murder of his wife and
mother-in-law, commenced on Monday, July 8, and is
expected to last about a week. He is charged with
I having, between the 10th and 25th of February last,
administered to Jane Cowan or Taylor, his mother-in-
law, in tapioca, or in porter or beer, or in a medicine
called Battley's sedative solution, tartarised antimony
and aconite and opium, and with having, between the
22nd of December, 1864, and the 18th of March, 1865,
administered to Mary Jane Taylor or Pritchard, his
wife, in egg flip, and in cheese, and in porter or beero
and in wine, tartarized antimony and aoonite, There
is a long list of witnesses on both sides, and about 200
" productions" to be used in evidence, including
numeroue letters, medical prescriptions, &c. The
prisoner was removed from Glasgow prison to Dalton
Gaol of Edinburgh on Tuesday morning.

Tee BEST TIA EIGHT-PCNCIE PIM POUND CHZAPTIL
—All who are partial to very cboioe tea, will receive
with satisfaction, the announcement, that in Conic-
queooe of the Reduction in Duty, Horniman's Pare
Teas are sold by the Agents in all parts of the kingdom
Eight-pence per pound cleaver. The decided preference
riven during the past quarter of a. century to these
perfectly Pure Teas, will, now the prices are so greatly
reduced, be even more widely extended. Their
distinctive superiority has attracted a host of imitators,
therefore this tea is supplied only in sealed Packets,
through Agenta—Chem,sta, &c.,—and as a further
protection against spurious imitations, every genuine
Packet is signed, Horniman and Co., London, Original
Importers of Tea, free from all mineral "facing" pooder.
The following is an extract from the Second Fdition
(page 188) of the Translation of the Pharmacoposisi of
the Royal College of Physicians, of London, by Dr. G.
F. Collier, published by Longman and Co. : 'lt is no
small defect in this compilation (speaking of the
Pharmacoposia) that we have no purgative UMW but
what contains aloes; yet we know that hceinorrhoidal
persons cannot bear aloes, except it be in the form of
COCKLE'S PILLS, which chiefly consists of aloes,
soacomony, and colneynth, which I think are formes
into a sort of compound extract, the acridity of which
is obviated, I suspect, by an alkaline process, and by •
fourth ingredient (unknown to me) of an aromatic] tonic
nature. I think no bettor and no worn of it for its
being • patent medicine. I look at it as an article of
commerce and domestic convenience, and do not hesi-
tate to say it is the beet made pill in the kingdom • •
muscular purge, s mucous purge, and • hydrogo;ne
purge combined, and their effects properly controlled by
dingent and oorrigent. That it does not commonly
4iiee licemorrhoids, like most aloetio pills, I attrilmte
erg thoroughly soluble, so that no undissolved
-ve to the meow Ineiehmal.