The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1869-09-09
The Advance in Agriculture.

Inc Advance ID Agriculture.
Of late years the subject of fertilizers
for the soil has received great attention.
These are now considered essential ele-
rnents of proper and improved agricul-
ture.
Originally the only kind used was the
Peruvian guano, so called, because it was
obtained from various islands under the
dominion of Peru.
| But this we find not to be adapted to
every soil. And hence it becomes mixed
with other substances, which not only
stimulated the production but added per-
manent strength to the SOIL
Heretofore we were entirely dependent
for our commercial fertilizers to importa-
Etions. But now, at the very moment that
the soil needs recuperation, and there is
more universal attention directed to agri-
culture and its fruits, the phosphates more
than all, best suited for it's proper devel-
opment, are found in abundance at our
very doors.
The Baltimore Gazette, in alluding to
the vast phosphate beds in South Carroll
ma, which have been prominently brought
to view since the war, says: "The discov-
cry of vast deposits of pure bone phos-
pilates in South Carolina, in various parts
of Germany, and in quite a number of
counties in England-but notably along
the coast of the estuary of the Severn
has given to commerce ample supplies of
this important fertilizer, and has rendered
the use of mineral phosphates altogether
unnecessary, and, in the interest of the
farmer, altogether unwarrantable. The
singular deposits to which we have alluded
date back to an unknown period and ex-
tend over vast areas. They are composed,
not only of bones abraded and water.worn,
but also, to considerable extent, of cop
rolites, which are of animal origin, and are
similar in composition to the bones of
commerce, and have all their fertilizing
properties An analysis which was made
some years ago by Prot. johnson, of the
Severn phosphates, shows that they con
tain fifty per cent. of.phosphate of lime,
fourteen per cent. of phosphate of protox,
ide of iron, and twenty per cent. of car
Donate OF lime. The average per centage
of the South Carolina deposits is quite
equal to that of the English, whilst excep.
tional specimens have been analyzed
which contained nearly ninety per cent. Of
pure phosphate of lime. In Germany it
is claimed that the average per centage is
higher than either of the others, but this
is doubtful, unless the German deposits
are rich in remains of ivory"
| The Importance OF these discoveries and
their agricultural value cannot be doubted.
The Charleston beds are by far the most
productive of any, and the large amount
of capital now invested in working them,
and in reducing the raw material to con
dition adapted to the wants of the farmer
indicates the estimation in which these
fertilizers, both in their simple form and
in combination with Peruvian guano, are
held by those who have tested them.
With this exhibition of tne great agri
cultural value of the depo sits found at oul
very doors, we trust that home enterprise
individual or combined, will devote itself
to the full development of wealth, and
not abandon the field entirely to Northern
capitalists, who will absorb the profits
which should of right accrue to our own
section in advancing the great work of re
cuperation in which the people of the
South are SO yitally Charles
ton Courier.