Farmers’ Memorandum Presented By The Patapsco Guano Co., Baltimore, MD

Baltimore, Maryland: Jno. S. Bridges & Co., Printers, 1886. Trifold booklet measuring 3 ½ x 6 ¼ inches folded, with notebook and short almanac inside; two pages with notes. A booklet made for the Patapsco Guano Company of Baltimore, Maryland, printed in 1886. The exterior of the booklet features three attractive lithographs by A. Hoen & Co., with the lithograph on the back of the booklet showing Patapsco’s manufacturing plant at Fell’s Point. Inside is a miniature almanac with notebook pages, two of which have been written on. Guano was invaluable as a source of nitrogen for fertilizer and gunpowder. Guano export was a pillar of economic development, supporting a stable economy in Peru in the mid-19th century and driving American annexation of numerous islands in the Pacific and Caribbean under the Guano Islands Act of 1856. For its part, the Patapsco Company was involved in a Supreme Court case in 1898 in which it contested the inspection charge of twenty-five cents per ton for fertilizers. Not too long after, in the early 20th century, a method for extracting nitrogen from air was discovered and guano’s importance declined.