Guano as compared with Manure. 349 



be able to produce the dung at Is. 6d. per ton, to cost us the 

 same money. But it can be neither produced nor purchased 

 at any such money. In the whole of the cases referred to, 

 the manure would be most valuable, and yet we find that 

 hardly in any case is there not an addition to the crop, of 

 say two to three tons of turnips per acre, by such increase of 

 manure. Now, if a ton of turnips be worth 10s., or even 

 8s., there is at once an element of repayment ; for, if a soil 

 is in a condition to give a large crop of turnips, it is almost 

 certain to be capable of giving a large crop of any other plant 

 to succeed. 



Mr. Charnock, — whose turnips, however, in the severe 

 insect season of 1851, suffered from the fly, so as to render 

 the trial unfit for a test, — gives it as the result of his practical 

 experience, that 4 cwt. of Peruvian guano, without manure, 

 is the cheapest and best mode of growing turnips ; but the 

 general testimony seems to be decidedly in favor of what all 

 farmers find it the best and easiest to do, viz., to add a small 

 quantity of artificial manure to the manure which the farm 

 will supply, and so to spread the whole manure over the land, 

 rather than put all the dung in one place, and the rest to be 

 manured with artificials alone. 



After such a statement we think there can be but one 

 opinion of the value of guano, seven dollars and fifty cents' 

 worth being equal in England to twenty tons of manure. 

 According to this writer, the manure must cost only one shil- 

 ling and sixpence per ton, to be worth as much as guano. 

 Now as three tons of manure are about equal to one cord, 

 and as it costs with us at least four dollars per cord, it follows 

 that in manuring one single acre of land with three hundred 

 pounds of guano, costing $7 50, the round sum of sixteen 

 dollars is saved ; showing that guano at $2 50 per hundred is 

 as cheap as manure at 87^ cents a cord, not the cost of haul- 

 ing it on to the land. 



If, after such evidence as this, farmers will continue to buy 

 ashes at eight cents a bushel, or manure at three to six dol- 

 lars a cord, including carting, and use them alone, then let 



