| Value per ton of 2,000 lbs. | ||
| Ammonia | 17.41 per cent | $60.93 |
| Soluble phosphoric acid | 5.00 per cent | 10.00 |
| Reverted phosphoric acid | 4.00 per cent | 6.40 |
| Insoluble phosphoric acid | .75 per cent | .30 |
| Potash | 2.00 per cent | 3.00 |
| $80.63 | ||
Selling price per ton of 2,000 lbs. | $40.00 | |
Ichaboe guano, which was largely imported into England in 1844-5, and used extensively as a manure for turnips, contained, on the average, 7½ per cent of ammonia, and 14 per cent of phosphoric acid. Its value at the present rates we may estimate as follows:
| Ammonia, 7½ per cent | $26.25 |
| Soluble Phosphoric acid, 4 per cent | 8.00 |
| Reverted Phosphoric acid, 10 per cent | 16.00 |
| $50.25 | |
| Selling price per ton of 2,000 lbs. | $21.80 |
The potash is not given, or this would probably add four or five dollars to its estimated value.
“All of which goes to show,” said the Deacon, “that the Peruvian Government is asking, in proportion to value, from two to two and a half times as much for guano as was charged twenty-five or thirty years ago. That first cargo of guano, sold in New York under the new guarantee, in 1877, for $56 per ton, is worth no more than the Ichaboe guano sold in England in 1845, for less than $22 per ton!
“And furthermore,” continued the Deacon, “from all that I can learn, the guano of the present day is not only far poorer in nitrogen than it was formerly, but the nitrogen is not as soluble, and consequently not so valuable, pound for pound. Much of the guano of the present day bears about the same relation to genuine old-fashioned guano, as leached ashes do to unleached, or as a ton of manure that has been leached in the barn-yard does to a ton that has been kept under cover.”
“True, to a certain extent,” said the Doctor, “but you must recollect that this ‘guaranteed’ guano is now sold by analysis. You pay for what you get and no more.”
“Exactly,” said the Deacon, “but what you get is not so good. A pound of nitrogen in the leached guano is not as available or as valuable as a pound of nitrogen in the unleached guano. And this fact ought to be understood.”
“One thing,” said I, “seems clear. The Peruvian Government is charging a considerably higher price for guano, in proportion to its actual value, than was charged 20 or 25 years ago. It may be, that the guano is still the cheapest manure in the market, but at any rate the price is higher than formerly—while there has been no corresponding advance in the price of produce in the markets of the world.”