172 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



enough of it to answer his purpose. It is a costly article to 

 manufacture, and, at the present prices of labor, it can be car- 

 ried out and applied to the land only at great expense. Hence, 

 he uses guano, not as a substitute for barnyard manure, but as 

 an auxiliary. The time may come, under judicious manage- 

 ment, when the land shall yield such crops as will, in their 

 consumption and in the consequent production of manure, ren- 

 der guano unnecessary. 



Of course all experiments will not be successful. Guano is a 

 new and powerful fertilizer. People, forgetting or not knowing 

 its strength, employ it too lavishly and kill their seed, or scatter 

 it in dry weather, its ammonia evaporates, or covering it too 

 lightly or not at all, and the same result follows, or neglecting 

 to mix it thoroughly with mould or mud before using it, thus 

 losing part of its virtue. There is no remedy for this but 

 increased knowledge and experience. In England, where it has 

 been most used, it is prized more highly each succeeding year. 

 There, and in some of our middle and southern States, where it 

 is extensively employed in restoring worn out land, it is found 

 to be a cheap, profitable and lasting manure. There is not a 

 subject connected with farming, about which so many inquiries 

 are made of this committee, as about guano.* 



We are obliged to report a general failure in the potato crop. 

 Many ingenious theories have been proposed, to account for the 

 rot, but no preventive has yet been found. Perhaps none will 

 be found short of an entire renewal of the stock from seed grown 

 in the original home of the potato. Potatoes that grow wild in 

 Chili, where the disease is not known, may revive the reproductive 

 energies of the plant now greatly impaired by over cultivation 

 and strong manure. New varieties from seed raised here, may 



* From a series of very carefully made experiments by Mr. William Flem- 

 ing, of Barochan, Scotland, he came to these conclusions: — " Particular atten- 

 tion should be paid when guano is used, that it be well mixed Avith the soil, as 

 this is of the greatest importance to the health of the plants and the bulk of the 

 crop, especially in the case of potatoes and turnips. It has also been found, 

 after many trials, that the best and most economical way of using guano for the 

 potato crop, is, by adding two or three hundred pounds per acre to half the 

 usual cjuantity of farm-yard dung, which will be found to give, at least, as good 

 a crop as double the quantity of dung alone, whilst it is much cheaper in the 

 first cost, and saves much cartage. For hay crops, the most profitable way of 

 using salt, ammonia, nitrate of soda and guano, is to make a compost." 



