APRIL l.->, 1915 



341 



it iij) only when guano seenii'd to bo out of 

 tlio market. Yes, good poultry uianui-e will 

 give a similar result, but not so marked. 

 Vou may recall that when Prof. Thorne, of 

 our Ohio E.\i)eriment Station, said so much 

 about lime for sweet clover and other leg- 

 umes I recalled this incident. 



Well, since our supply of potash has been 

 recently cut olf (here in Florida, especial- 

 ly), attention has been called to guano; and 

 remembering my experience of yeare ago 1 

 sent to Crenshaw Bros. Seed Co.. of Tam- 

 l>a, for a 100-lb. sack of guano, and com- 

 menced experimenting. It cost $3.85 for 

 the 100 lbs. 1 first tried it on a bed of 

 radishes. By the way. when you .set a hen 

 always sow some radishes at tlie same time. 

 They will be then just right for the chicks 

 when they are three or four days old, and 

 they will soon clamor for them more than 

 for almost any thing else. With a sharp 

 knife shave oS the tops from a bunch held 

 in the left hand. The mother hen will in- 

 struct them. 



The radish-bed was manured and fertil- 

 ized, and then covered with sifted slaked 

 lime until the surface looked white and 

 then raked in. Just before the seeds came 

 up a little guano was sifted on erne spot 

 across the rows; and the dark rich color 

 and larger plants in a streak acioss the 

 bed show the effect. Part of a row of 

 onions shows the same thing; but the finest 

 " object lesson " is a row of peas 30 feet 

 long. I i)ut about a teacupful on five feet 

 at one end. and hoed it in carefully. After 

 the first rain they took on a decidedly 

 (litferent color; and now when the 2.5-foot 

 untreated j^art of the row is turning yellow, 

 tiie remainder is a dark thrifty green, and 

 Mrs. Root says she has picked more peas 

 from that five feet than from the whole 25 

 feet that had no guano. Otie cent's icorth 

 of guano must have given five or ten cents' 

 worth of peas to make a rough estimate. 

 I tried it all over the garden in a similar 

 waj-; and while the results are not all so 

 pronounced. I feel sure that, used judicious- 

 ly here in Florida, it is going to be of 

 great benefit. On a few things, where the 

 weather was too cold and wet, and possibly 

 l)ecause 1 used too much, or got it too close 

 to the plants or seeds, I killed the plants. 

 Like many other new things you will need 

 to experiment until you get acquainted with 

 it. 



As many of you will doubtless be inquir- 

 ing where you can get it, especially a small 

 sample. I am going to do some '' free adver- 

 tising" by clipping from an advertisement 

 I find in the Florida Grower: 



Write for free sample (enough for 40 square feet) 

 eenuine Peruvian Guano, Nature's most wonderful 

 fortilizer, tlie greatest crop-producer known. Nitrate 

 of soda. Nitrate Agenciks Co., Savannah Bank 

 Building, Savannah, Ga. 



Perhaps 1 should add that all soils are 

 not alike ; and while guano gives great re- 

 sults on mine it may not on youi^. Make 

 careful tests on your own ground before 

 you invTst in fertilizers of any kind. And 

 permit me also to add that our best author- 

 ities declare " soil analyses " amount to lit- 

 tle or nothing. You must find out by care- 

 ful tests on your own garden what your 

 land needs. 



At this date, March 2, we are digging the 

 nicest Bliss Triumj^h potatoes we ever gi'ew. 

 While old potatoes are advertised at 20 cts. 

 a peek we are getting 50 cts. Besides our 

 poultry manure, we have used on our half- 

 acre garden about 500 lbs. of Mapes' special 

 potato manure at a cost of about half as 

 much as guano, but at present we think 

 guano is cheaper. 



A NEW " DAILY BREAD.'^ 



Last October, our good friend Henry 

 Borchers, of Laredo, Texas, sent a clipping 

 from the (Sunday) San Antonio Express, 

 with a heading *' Discovered — a New Bread 

 that will save Southwest Texas Millions." 

 I read the article, but as I have had reason 

 to take " discoveries " exploited in Sunday 

 papers with a little caution, I paid but little 

 attention to it. When I saw later that 

 " feterita," the new bread-i^roducing plant, 

 was cataloged as cheap feed for chickens, 

 I began to '' take notice;" and when I saw 

 the following in such a reliable journal as 

 the Farm and Fireside, I took more notice. 



Kansas had 135,800 acres of feterita in 1914, 

 and yet it sprang into prominence in Kansas only 

 last year. Besides its dry-weather-resisting qualities 

 and early maturity, the feeding value of its grain is 

 pronounced as practically the same, pound for 

 pound, as that of kafir and milo. Kansas certainly 

 snaps up the good new things. — Farm and Fireside. 



Will some of our Kansas readei-s tell us 

 if tlie above is really a fact, or is there a 

 mistake in the figures? 



Well, feterita is now growing in our 

 garden; but it has been so cold and wet 

 during the whole ])ast winter (over three 

 limes the normal rainfall), it hasn't looked 

 hapjjy, nor grown very much; but when- 

 ever the sun comes out warm it brightens 

 up vividly. 



At my solicitation friend Borchers sent 

 us some feterita fiour and (as he is a bak- 

 er) also some feterita bread and cakes. 

 Breakfast food made of the flour, with 

 some nice honey, suits me to a dot, and the 

 cakes are also fine ; but so far the bread 

 does not strike me as an improvement on 



