EXPERIENCE WITH GUANO. 



79 



the ammonia. Instead of a sprinkling, it 

 may be applied with the manure in layers of 

 equal, or even double thickness. Saturated 

 with the liquid and the volatile portions of 

 the manure, and its vegetable matter de- 

 composed by the fermentation of the mass, 



it becomes at least equal in value to the 

 farm-yard manure itself, as commonly used; 

 and thus affords, to many persons, the 

 means of doubling or trebling the bulk and 

 value of their manure heap at trifling cost. 

 —Ed.] 



MY EXPERIENCES WITH GUANO. 

 BY A RETIRED CITIZEN, BALTIMORE. 



Dear Sir : Do not suppose that I am about 

 to come forward with another certificate of 

 the unparalleled virtues of the " great fer- 

 tilizer." I am not in the employ of any of 

 the speculators in the article. I have no 

 desire to tell a large story, and appear be- 

 fore the world as having made the richest 

 soil in the world out of a dry sand hill by 

 top-dressings of the excrement of sea birds. 

 No, indeed. I am a disappointed man ; I 

 have tried to make my garden rich, and I 

 have made myself poor indeed, in vegeta- 

 bles ! 



I know very well what you will say : 

 " You did not understand the matter. You 

 put it on at the wrong time. You used 

 too much. You should have been more 

 cautious." This is all very fine, and may 

 be very true. But pray, how was I to 

 know just how much to apply to every sort 

 of crop ? The farming newspapers, the 

 circulars of the dealers, all spoke of it as 

 containing the very elements of life, nutri- 

 tion itself, for plants of every possible 

 growth. " Ammonia and the phosphates " 

 (I have got as deep as that into the chemi- 

 cals) " are the food of plants ;" and guano, I 

 learned, is rich in ammonia and the phos- 

 phates. 



You must know, then, that this is the 

 very first season of my dabbling in the soil. 



The by-gone part of my life has been 

 chiefly spent among brick walls and flag- 

 stones. If the result of my experiences 

 for the first five months, (I began this 

 spring,) should lead you to think that /am 

 rather green — so-so verdant — I beg to as- 

 sure you that my garden is not so. There 

 are melancholly gaps in all my beds. My 

 transplanted trees have most of them as- 

 sumed the appearance of what my neigh- 

 bor, a botanist who dries plants, keeps in 

 his "hortus siccus^ And — but I will 

 transcribe from my diary. 



April 2d, planted four beds of beets, (a.) 

 Had the ground covered with a tolerable 

 sprinkling of guano. This was well dug 

 under, and sowed with " Early Turnep, 

 Blood Beet " and "Early Scarcity." Plant- 

 ed, also, a long bed {b) of White Onions. 

 " Onions like a very rich soil." Have giv- 

 en this patch accordingly another lio-ht 

 coat of guano over the surface, while rakino- 

 the bed ; and then planted in drills. 



{Mem. — Only about one-fourth of the 

 beets in the beds {a) came up, and these 

 very slowly. Afterwards, my man "John" 

 planted some of the same seed in another 

 part of the garden, of which, I firmly be- 

 lieve, every one grew. Onions in (b) still 

 worse, not one in fifty seeds grew, and these 

 gradually died out as if burnt. Have sowed 



