The Sun.
London, England, 1869-06-03 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, THURSDAY EVENING, JUNE 3, 1869
•MEM...W.••••••

ER, WALTER MORRION, M.F., ON THE
ADULTERATION 07 MANURES.

At the last meeting of the Agricultural and Horticul-
tural Co-operative Association, of 29, Parliament-street,
Westminster, Mr. Morrison, M.P., who lit one of the
Governing Council, made an interesting statement respect-
ing guano adulterations. He asked those present sub-
jected to temptations of low offers to consider two things.
First, that the reduced prices thus offered to them were
not voluntary favours, and would not be renewed the day
following, if the association could be run off the road.
Second, that they had no security outside their own co-
operative association managed by themselves that
reductions in price were not accompanied by reduc-
tions in value. He could illustrate that by a reference
to the trade in guano. He knew something of
the mysteries of the trade. Guano was not
unfrequently offered to their members at prices as lots as
the association could purchase it from the agents of
the Peruvian Government. Now as there was only ono
wholtsale price to all the trade, they knew in such cases
that some trick was being played. A relative of his own
bought some guano guaranteed as being genuine and un-
adulterated. It turned out upon analysis to be damaged
by sea water. This was sold off by the Peruvian Govern•
ment's agents to contractors at a greatly reduced price,
and he believed much care was taken to prevent it getting
into the bands of the trade as beet Peruvian guano ; but it
found its way to the public in acme cases as the
genuine article. That was the least of the frauds. A
common trick was to adulterate guano with guano.
Mixtures were made up of inferior guanos and all sorts of
compounds, and sold sometimes as genuine guano. The
only advantage of the compounds was, that they yielded
a handsome profit to the mixers, v.hilst gratifying the
economical propensities of the bny,rs. At Liverpool,
moreover, there is a convenient deposit of yellow loam on
the Mersey, which, with plaster of Paris and brick dust
and sand, enables certain dealers to supply the country
with Peruvian guano of any price required. The practice
was well understood in the trade. The skill of rogues
who mixed exceeded the detective skill of the l.uyers, as
an incident he recently saw reported would chew. A
Scotch agriculturist lecturing upon the matter to his club
produced before his audience two samples, and asked the
farmers present to judge between the genuine article and
the adulterated one. A majority gave a preference to the
mixture. Some agents and dealers relied so implicitly
upon the ease with which their customers could be caught
by bargains, that they simply kept a stock of appropriate
sand in their warehouses, or on board the barges which
carried their supplies home, and cheapened the article as
the grocers were said to cheapen their sugar. If the
members would look at the published analysis of guano,
supplied last season by the association, they would see
that it contained less than one per cent. of sand, the pro.
portion being 0.69 ; but ordinary samples of adulterated
guano bad been found to contain no less than 47 per cent.
of sand.