Of all manures procurable by the American Farmer, guano from the
rainless islands of Peru, is perhaps not only the most concentrated--the
most economical to the purchaser--but by its composition, as we will
show by analysis, the best adapted to all the crops cultivated in this
country requiring manure. For wheat, especially, it is the one thing
needful. The mineral constituents of cultivated plants, as will also be
shown by analysis, are chiefly lime, magnesia, potash, soda, chlorine,
sulphuric and phosphoric acid; all of which will be found in Peruvian
guano. Nitrogen, the most valuable constituent of stable or compost
manures, exists in great abundance in guano, in the exact condition
required by plants to promote rapid vegetation. The concentration of all
these valuable properties in the small bulk of guano, renders it
particularly valuable to farms situated in districts unprovided with
facilities of cheap transportation. In some hilly regions, it would be
utterly impossible to make any ordinary manure pay for transportation.
With guano the case is very different--one wagon will carry enough with
a single pair of horses to dress 12 or 16 acres; while of stable manure
it would require as many or more loads to each acre to produce the same
effect.
But this is not the greatest advantage in the use of this fertilizer;
the first application puts the land in such condition, that judicious
after cultivation renders it continuously fertile by its own action of
productiveness and reproductiveness of wheat, clover and wheat, by
turning in the clover of one year for the wheat of the next, and by
returning the straw back to the ground where it grew, spread open the
surface to shade the plants of clover and manure its roots, which in
turn manure the corn or wheat.
As a source of profit alone, we should recommend the continuous
application of Guano; knowing as we do, from our extensive means of
observation, that no outlay of capital ever made by the farmer, is so
sure and certain to bring him back good returns for his money, as when
he invests it in this invaluable fertilizer for his impoverished soil.
In proof of this, we shall give the reader of this little work a number
of experiments made by some of the most improving farmers in Virginia
and other States.