In no other part of the world, perhaps, can the beneficial effects of
Guano be more plainly seen than in the tide-water region of Virginia. In
the counties of King George, Westmoreland, Richmond, Northumberland,
Lancaster, in the northern neck, as the peninsula between the Potomac
and Rappahanock is termed; thousands of acres of land so poor and
worthless a few years ago, it was barely rated as property, are now
annually producing beautiful crops of wheat, corn and clover, solely by
the application of Guano. In the meantime, the discovery of such an easy
means of improving a worn out and barren soil, has increased the money
value of land three or four hundred per cent. This is not all.
Heretofore, the only part of this district considered worth cultivation
was the bottom land bordering the rivers and creeks; the forest land
yielding scanty crops for two or three years after being cleared,
scarcely paying for the labor, while its value was rated at from $1 to
$4 per acre, and unsaleable at that. Since the introduction of Guano, it
is found these forest lands, which are of a sandy, loamy character, and
much more pleasant than the bottom lands to till, can be cultivated with
equal or greater profit than the stiff lands upon the bottoms. The
writer has seen repeatedly in the counties mentioned, luxuriant fields
of wheat, corn and clover, while directly alongside of such crops, the
ground was almost as bare of vegetation as the sea-shore sands, too
poor, as the common expression is there, to bear poverty grass. And what
produced this change? Simply a dressing of 200 lbs. of Guano to the
acre.