486 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 



contact with the seed or young plants, or it will be just 

 as sure to kill them as so much fire. After the seed is 

 dropped, turn the other side of the double furrow back 

 upon it, and you have your bed complete, with your fer- 

 tilizer so well buried, immediately below the plants, its 

 volatile particles cannot escape. If it is objected to this, 

 that it will greatly increase the labor of preparing the 

 ground, I have only to reply, try it well ; if it will not pay 

 abandon it. My opinion is, it will be found profitable. 

 But take my advice, and you never will sow it upon the 

 surface, unless you are particularly anxious to make a 

 very fine crop of grass. 



I have been often asked by planters, whether it is a 

 durable manure. I cannot answer as to cotton, but I 

 know it is followed on wheat land by a growth of clover 

 that no other manure can produce at the same expense. 

 I predict many farmers in the South will be disappointed 

 in the results of an application of guano, because they 

 plow so very shallow, that a long dry spell will convert 

 the two or three inches of loose earth they have merely 

 scratched up, into dust, and the rays of the sun will reach 

 the guano and drive it off almost as certainly as the same 

 cause would the strength of a bottle of spirits of cam- 

 phor when the stopper was out. 



I have no doubt, myself, the general use of guano will 

 have as great an effect upon the old fields of the cotton 

 States, as it has upon similar worthless land in Virginia. 

 The only question now is, whether it can be profitably 

 applied to old land, while there is still so much forest 

 to be destroyed and new soil put into cultivation, and 

 worn out, before men will commence a system of renova- 

 tion. Many persons object to the price of guano. It is 

 not the fault of the merchant who sells it to the planter. 

 That which comes from Peru, is owned by the govern- 

 ment of that country, and is shipped here and sold by 

 their agents, generally, at about $47 a ton of 2240 lbs. 

 The Treasury gets about one fourth of this, the freight 

 is $12 to $15, and the balance goes for commissions to 



