274 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



other. In this matter, the farmers of the United States must 

 judge for themselves. 



The quantity which it is deemed best to apply varies from 

 two hundred weight to four hundred weight, or five hundred 

 weight. Frequent cases have occurred of the application of five 

 hundred weight and eight hundred weight, to a statute acre, with 

 great advantage. Cases are on record of twenty-nine and thirty 

 hundred weight being applied to grass-land with a great, but not, 

 most certainly, a remunerating increase of crop. I met one farm 

 er in Lincolnshire, who thought more than one hundred weight 

 applied to turnips was unnecessary ; but the almost universal 

 testimony is in favor of three hundred weight. A bushel of 

 sifted guano weighs from fifty-two to fifty-four pounds. 



In regard to the mode of application, it is well settled that it 

 should seldom be applied alone. To garden vegetables, or 

 greenhouse plants, it may be applied in a state of solution in 

 water. In field cultivation, it may be applied by being mixed 

 with four or six times its quantity of dry earth or mould. In 

 this way, it may be sown broadcast over the field, and then 

 lightly harrowed or turned in ; or it may be sown first in the 

 same drill where the seed is to be dropped ; great care must be 

 taken, however, that it does not come in contact with the seed, 

 or it will destroy its vegetative powers. It is desirable that it 

 should be covered as soon as may be after being sown. The 

 best farmers give a caution against mixing it with lime, or 

 bones, or wood-ashes, as these substances, coming in contact 

 with it, will drive off its ammonia. 



Where a portion of barn manure has been applied in conjunc 

 tion with guano, the mixture has been found much more effica 

 cious than the manure when applied alone. In an application 

 which I saw, guano gave seven tons of turnips increase to an 

 acre over an artificial manure which had been much praised, and 

 was applied at the same time. 



A good mode of preparing it for application is to mix it with 

 fine earth, on the headlands of the field where it is to be used, 

 forming it, with the earth, into alternate layers, in the proportion 

 of earth to the guano of three to one ; and after it has remained 

 two or three days, thoroughly incorporating them together by 

 turning over the heap. 



