Purchasing Fertilizer in 1880

Turns out the 1880 Agricultural Census schedule recorded the cost of fertilizer purchased for the farm.

I'm not sure what fertilizers were available then--guano certainly.. The US had passed the Guano Islands Act in 1852.  The wikipedia article on guano suggests perhaps saltpeter was replacing it.

Not a Good Morning for Farmers in the Post

Two articles in the Washington Post: the toxic algae bloom in Lake Erie is blamed on runoffs of fertilizer and manure; the increase in "intersexed fish" in the Chesapeake over the years is blamed on runoffs of fertilizer and manure.  (An interseced

The River of Riches

That's the title of a book I'm reading now. (It's not new, but Tyler Cowen plugged his new book, which isn't yet at the library).  It's by Joel Mokyr, and the subtitle is : Technological Creativity and Economic Progress.  It's interesting, although a bit overwhelming in the number and variety of innovations and inventions he describes.  I'm only up to the late 19th century but I'd recommend it for anyone interested in how and when society changes the way it produces goods.

But on to agriculture. The main chemical fertilizers are nitrogen, phosphorus, and potash/potassium.  As Mokyr observes, there's a long history of creating such fertilizers, but the "father of fertilizer" was Justus von Liebig, (1803-1872). I don't know if you count the making of potash by burning trees, as did my great great grandfather who settled in Ontario county and cleared his land.  The potash was shipped east for soap, glass, and fertilizer. Late in the 19th century mines were developed.   Nitrogen came from mining Chile's guano deposits.  Also in the mid 19th century super-phosphate was developed (making a more soluble form by treating phosphate rock with sulfuric acid.

[Revised the title so it fits the first sentence of the post.]

Dr. Shiva Is Wrong

At Blog for Rural America, Steph Larson reports on the organic farming conference. Including this nugget:

To a packed audience, Dr. Shiva remembered the roots of industrial agriculture, which was born out of a need to find different uses for the chemicals of war [emphasis added]. Now seeds are patented and controlled by only a few multi-national corporations, while producers are driven further into debt and suffer from hunger. As agriculture becomes more consolidated and fewer people control our food supply, Dr. Shiva asserted that the very health of our democracy is at risk.

The bolded phrase is ridiculous nonsense, though a meme popular among the left food community. (Dr. Pollan repeated a version of it in "Omnivore...". )

The reference presumably is to the Haber-Bosch process, which was developed before WWI in order to avoid the need to import nitrates from Chile. The nitrates were particularly important in European agriculture. Now gunpowder originally was made of sulphur, charcoal, and saltpeter (or "nitre" or potassium nitrate). And Germany's access to Chilean nitrate during WWI was cut off by the British blockade, so the Haber-Bosch process was used to make nitrate for explosives. "The Alchemy of Air" is a fast-moving narrative of the developments in this area.