NOTE 1. In a subsequent conversation with Mr. Burgwyn, he
stated a fact which makes this point much stronger. After ordering the
guano, he left home, giving his farm manager orders to apply if to that
particular piece of wheat as soon as it arrived. Owing to the fact that
the seed was injured--that the land was in a very unfit condition from
poverty and drouth to produce a crop of wheat, it had assumed such a
miserable appearance before the arrival of the guano, that the manager
wrote to Mr. B. his opinion of the utter folly of applying anything so
expensive to a crop already struck with death. Not imagining how very
unpromising was the prospect of success, Mr. B. immediately wrote to him
to go ahead as directed. Before the application was completed he
returned home, and his first impression was to stop the work at once and
give up the field as lost; but on examining the effect upon that part
where the guano was first applied, he found it had already infused new
vigor into the plants, for they had put off their sickly yellow color,
and taken on a vigorous green; and therefore he decided at once to go
on, which as will be seen by the result, was a most valuable decision.
NOTE 2. From personal knowledge of this very field, we are
confident it would not have yielded without the guano, one half of seven
bushels. It is a flat surface, clayey loam, and badly affected by winter
rains, and such freezing and thawing as it had during the last severe
winter. Besides it was a few years since, when it came into the
possession of Mr. Burgwyn, one of those old worn out, skinned-to-death
places, so common in that State, which all the deep plowing and good
farming of that gentleman had not been able to restore, until he luckily
hit upon guano; which notwithstanding the most unfavorable
circumstances, has given him conclusive proof of its inestimable value.
To say nothing of the ten bushels of wheat per acre, which we are
confident he gained, the clover is worth more than the guano cost; and
without it, one might almost as soon expect to grow clover upon Coney
Island beach, as upon that field.
This letter contains testimony of inestimable value. It comes from a
gentleman of intelligence and careful observation, who is devoted to his
profession of a farmer, and who has been one of the most successful
renovators of worn out plantations in the south, and it comes very
opportunely to give our work an appropriate FINALE.