_Hon. John M. Clayton's Farm._--No one who looks upon this highly
improved farm now, with its most luxuriant crops, can be made to believe
it was a barren waste seven years ago--hardly worth fencing or
cultivating. This great change, so far beyond the power of human belief,
has been effected by lime, plaster and guano. The railroad from
Frenchtown to New Castle, passes through this farm, four miles from the
latter place. It is well worthy a visit from any one anxious to make
personal observations of the effects of "bought manures," upon a soil
too poor to support a goose per acre.
_Effect of Guano on Oats._--During a visit to Mr. Clayton, in 1851, we
saw the most luxuriant growth of oats upon one of the fields of this
farm, which we have ever witnessed, and it has been our fortune to see
some tall specimens of this crop on the bottom lands of Ohio, Indiana,
and Illinois. The seed he had obtained from England, and the means of
making it grow, from Peru. The guano was plowed in with the oats, at the
rate of 350 lbs. to the acre. The soil is a yellow clayey loam. The
effect upon other crops had been equally beneficial. The growth of
clover was so great he had purchased thirty bullocks to fatten, for the
purpose of trying to consume some of his surplus feed. The effect upon
wheat, corn, potatoes, turnips, garden vegetables and fruit trees, was
almost as astonishing as upon the oats and grass.
_C. P. Holcomb_, Esq., one of the most improving farmers of one of the
most improving counties in the U.S., has met with great success in the
use of lime, plaster, and guano. His beautiful highly improved home farm
is near Newcastle; but that upon which he has met with great success in
the use of guano, lies about four miles from Dover. Before he purchased
it had become celebrated for its miserable poverty. It is now equally
celebrated for its productiveness. The use of guano in that part of the
State has now reached a point far beyond what the most sanguine would
have dared to predict four years ago; and the benefits are of the most
flattering kind. Lands have been increased in value to a far greater
extent than all the money paid for guano; while the increased profit
from the annual crops, has produced corresponding improvements in the
condition and happiness of the people.
No greater blessing, said an intelligent gentleman to me, ever was
bestowed upon the people of Delaware.
_Extensive use of Guano by a Delaware farmer._ Maj. Jones, whose name is
extensively known as a very enterprising farmer, purchased in the summer
of 1851, of Messrs. A.B. Allen & Co. New York, sixty tons of Peruvian
guano, for his own use. With this he dressed 300 acres of wheat, upon
the farm at his residence on the Bohemia manor; plowing in part of it
and putting in part of it by a drilling machine at the rate of 200 lbs.
to the acre, sowing the wheat all in drills. Part of the ground was
clover, part corn, and perhaps one half wheat and oat stubble. The earth
at the time of sowing was so dry, doubts were entertained whether it
would ever vegetate; and that and other causes extended the work so
late, upon a portion of the ground, there was scarcely any appearance of
greenness when it froze up. With all these disadvantages, the crop was
estimated at harvest at twenty bushels to the acre. Without guano no one
acquainted with the farm would have estimated the crop at an average of
ten bushels. This gives an undoubted increase of five bushels for each
hundred weight of guano; and as the soil contains a good deal of clay
with which the guano was well mixed, it will retain much of the value of
the application, for the next crop. Maj. Jones has heretofore derived
very great benefits from the use of guano, as might safely be adjudged
from the fact of his risking $3,000 in one purchase of the same article.
_Lasting effects of Guano._--Maj. Jones is well satisfied upon this
point. In 1847, he used 16 tons, half Peruvian and half Patagonian,
sowed with a lime-spreading machine and plowed in deep, say eight inches
on clayey loam--planted corn and made 60 bushels per acre on 100 acres;
which was an increase of 12 bushels per acre over any former year. Next
spring the weeds grew as high as his head on horseback. Rolled them down
and plowed under and sowed wheat, five pecks to the acre, and made a
heavier crop than ever before made on same land, which he attributes
entirely to the guano. Thinks the third crop of wheat is benefitted from
guano plowed in three years previous.
The extent to which guano is used in the State of Delaware may be
inferred from the fact that it is not at all unusual for merchants in
small country villages to purchase from 50 to 200 tons at a time for
their retail trade.
Among other successful users of guano in that State, we may mention
Governor Ross, who, if as good a ruler as he is farmer, ought to be
continued in office to the end of life.
The soil to which guano has been mostly applied in this State is a sandy
loam, and the process of applying it, by sowing broadcast from 200 to
350 lbs. per acre, and plowing in from four to six inches deep, previous
to sowing wheat, which is always followed by clover, by every one who
understands his own true interest; for wherever that course has been
pursued, there has been a certain profit derived from the application,
even when the wheat has failed.
The improvements in farming in Delaware within the last ten years, will
probably exceed in proportion to acres and people, any other State in
the Union. Nearly all the northern part of the State has been whitened
with lime, and the southern part is rapidly following the same path;
while the sale of guano in all parts will exceed any other section of
the country, if not in quantity, certainly in numbers of persons making
use of this sure means of restoring the lands of an almost ruined State,
to their pristine fertility.