Wichita eagle., 1889-07-26
ARTIFICIAL FERTILIZERS
Great Improvements in Them During the
Past Thirty Years.


Among the other titles TO distinction
which the Nineteenth century is hereaf-
ter to enjoy, one will be found in the fact
that in that age agriculture first began
to be pursued IL O systematic manner
with the aid of scientific research. Ma
nuring with the products of the barn.
yard is a very ancient art, but the resort
to the mine for fertilizers is substantially
an invention of our own times. Chem
lists first told the farmer the cause of the
frequent speedy exhaustion in the grain
producing powers of the soil; it has
fallen to the geologist to show whence
may be obtained the phosphate element
which is the most quickly exhausted of
all the elements of plant food in process
of cropping.
Although artificial fertilizers are prac-
tically the invention of the last thirty
years. the industries connected with
their manufacture now demand capital
of about s100, 200. 900, with an annual
product of about that amount, and the
volume of the industries is increasing
more rapidly. perhaps, than any other
art which pertains 10 mining. The use
of artificial fertilizers grew out of the
trade in guano. These heaps Of bird
dung were first made use of by the Peru
vians. The account of Garcilasco de la
Vega, published in 1904, relates that the
Peruvians in the Twelfth century used
guano beds as a source of fertilizers. OF
such importance did they esteem the
material of these beds that the penalty
of death was imposed by the early 1ncas
upon any one found killing the birds
which made these precious deposits.
For many years the guano beds of the
other similar deposits within the tropi-
cal region supplied the demands of our
gardens. AS the supply of these guanos
approached exhaustion and the price in
creased, the skill of chemists and geolo-
gists showed the manufacturers where
to find and how to treat deposits of
mineral phosphates in such a manner
that they might substantially serve to re-
place the manures of animal origin. In
bulletin No. 46, of the United States
geological survey, DIR. r. A. f. Penrose,
Jr., now assistant state Geologist Of
Texas, has given an important treatise
On phosphate deposits, and although his
report mainly concerns the phosphates Of
North America, it gives a synoptic ac-
count of the known beds Of this nature
in all parts of the world. The repor.
makes it plain that only a small part Of
the deposits of this nature are yet known
to us.
The process Of discovery of these val
liable resources is now, and for long
time will be, slow, and this for the rea-
son that the material occurs in forms
which are unfamiliar TO the public or
even to the ordinarily trained prospector
who seeks for mineral resources. In
most cases the material appears either
in the form of greenish crystals or In the
shape of nodular masses looking much
like claystones. In neither of these
shapes is it likely to attract general at
tention. In fact the great deposits at
Charleston, S. c., had been in view for
century or more. Concretions Of cerne
phosphate were dug up In the bitches Of
the rice fields and condemned as worth
less until after the war, when native
chemist, once a man Of fortune, but
brought to need by the havoc wrought
upon that country during the rebellion,
cropping about to find some means Of
mending his resources, analyzed tho TO
jected stones. As the result OF his in
quiry they became the very foundation
of the commercial prosperity In his state.
N. S. Shaler in Boston Herald.