272 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



imated. This is evident from the fact that, after the most exact 

 and minute analysis of this manure, conducted with all the skill 

 and science which can be brought to bear upon it, no one has 

 been able to form an artificial guano with any degree of its 

 efficacy. Chemistry determines with wonderful accuracy its 

 inorganic properties ; but fifty per cent, of it is organic matter, 

 and this being dissipated or lost in the process of analysis, noth 

 ing is known of it but its absolute quantity. Every common 

 farmer knows that horse manure, cow manure, hog manure, 

 sheep manure, are all specifically different, and their effects and 

 uses are different ; and I believe this depends not more upon a 

 difference in their inorganic elements, than upon some specific 

 effects of their organic elements ; and though horses, and cows, 

 and sheep, should be fed upon precisely the same food, their 

 excrementitious matter would be specifically different, and the 

 effects upon vegetation different. I pretend not to say in what 

 this difference consists ; this, chemistry has not yet reached, 

 though I can but hope the goal will presently be attained. I 

 am not therefore entirely satisfied with any account which 

 chemistry has given of guano, so far as its operation is concerned. 

 It has done much, and is clearly able to determine the different 

 specific values of different samples. This is of great importance 

 to the farmer, and not less so to the honest dealer. But the 

 specific qualities of this extraordinary manure, as proved by its 

 effects, are;, I presume to believe, with all possible respect for 

 science, yet to be discovered. I know the consequences of ques 

 tioning the infallibility of the pope, but I am no Catholic. 



One, indeed, may well speak of its effects as extraordinary, 

 from what I myself have seen. In Scotland, last autumn, two 

 shrubs were shown to me, sweet-briers, growing in front of a 

 two-story house, and trained upon its sides ; one at one, the 

 other at the other end. The soil in which they grew, the 

 aspect, and other circumstances, were the same. One, in the 

 season, had grown six or seven feet ; the other, nearly thirty 

 feet ! It had actually climbed to the roof of the house, and 

 turned and hung down, reaching half the distance down from 

 the roof to the ground. I judged this could not have been less 

 than thirty feet. This had been repeatedly watered with liquid 

 guano, by the hands of its fair cultivator ; for this was another 

 experiment by a lady, (which I hope my American friends will 



