GUANO. 



There seems to be a sort of crisis, if we may 

 so call it, in the fate of this substance — whether 

 it shall or shall not continue to be an article of 

 commerce, and of practical use in American 

 Husbandly. We shall submit, impartially, the 

 testimony for and against it, leaving the reader 

 to say on which side it preponderates. To us it 

 seems, at present, to be decidedly pro-guano. — 

 But we feel it to be our dutj- to premise, that 

 neither from indolence, which leads us to snap 

 at whatever saves us trouble, nor from want of 

 due caution, should any farmer allow himself to 

 be drawn into a neglect of tlie materials to he 

 found on his own premises for manufacturing 

 manure — and yet we must declare that such 

 neglect is committed to a degree that is full of 

 reproach and discredit, more especially to 

 Southern Agricultm-ists. On this point, how- 

 ever, as on many other points of Husbandrj', 

 great reformation has taken place, and is going 

 on, over that region of country — for even the 

 dullest comprehension begins to perceive, that 

 renewed applications of manure to cultivated 

 fields is as indispensable (and on precisely the 

 same principle) as daily food is necessary to a 

 cow that is daily milked ! and that in both 

 cases the product will correspond with the 

 quantity, and yet more with the quality of the 

 food. 



On this subject of the qualitj- of food, as con- 

 nected with the strength and value of tlie ma- 

 nure — believing that it cannot be too often or 

 too forcibly impressed on the mind of the Far- 

 mer — we stop, in going along, to copy a striking 

 passage, applicable to the general subject and 

 connected with the one in hand : — 



" The quality of animal dung materially de- 

 pends upon the nature of the food habitually 

 used. The richer and more nutritious it is, the 

 greater will be the fertilizing properties of the 

 emanations. Hence the dung of the race-horse 

 is more valuable than that of the drudge released 

 from the cart and kept upon low fare. For the 

 very same rea.«on the excrementitious deposits 

 of birds, feeding upon fish or flesh, aflbrd a 

 stronger manure than parrots, for example, be- 

 cause the latter live only on grain and ben-ies. 

 Maize, during a great part of the year, is almost 

 exclusively their food, and the ravages commit- 

 ted by them on the fields planted with it are 

 extensive. Their dung, consequently, approxi- 

 mates more to that of the racehorse. If we 

 could find out the excrementitious leavings of 

 any other bird or quadruped, containing more 

 ammoniacal compounds than Guano, and of 

 which the supply is equal, then only should we 

 possess an equivalent. This appears to be im- 



practicable although it is a fact, analytically as- 

 certained, that die dung of the boa'-con.strictor 

 contains more ammonia than that of any other 

 animal hitherto experimented upon." 



The history of the introduction of Guano iutc 

 the United States is worthy of being noted, to 

 show the slowness with which new things are 

 admitted into general use among Farmers ; at 

 the same time that its present popularity evinces 

 the activity of agricultural inquiry, and the ne- 

 cessaiy and powerful force of the press in push- 

 ing, against everj' obstacle, a know'-ledge ot the 

 value of things, of which the existence would 

 not otherwise be known. The extent and tlie 

 manner in which that force was exercised dur- 

 ing the last year, to spread a knowledge of the 

 then recent importations and the value of Guano, 

 is to no one better kno^\•n than to us. The gen- 

 tleman who contributed more than all others 

 unitea to its distribution and trial, is, we may 

 as well say, Mr. George Law, of Baltimore, of 

 whom it is but proper to add, that his exertions 

 were purely and altogether disinterested. 



Mr. Law- has done for Guano what Judge Pe- 

 ters did for Plaster of Paris. The same hesi- 

 tation was e^-inced about the use of bone ma- 

 nure. \Vhen Mr. Hornby erected his establish- 

 ment for grinding bones in this city about nine 

 years since, he was under tlie necessity of ma- 

 king a gratuitous distribution of tliat material. — 

 Farmers consented, with suspicious hesitation, 

 to apply them — but the next year he sold 8,000 

 bushels, and thence the demand rapidly in- 

 creased, recommended by its portability and its 

 power, and bones that sold at first at five cents 

 a bushel, went up to thirty ! Yet there are 

 thousands of Fanners in the United States who 

 never even yet have seen or read of bone dnst 

 as a manure. And these are the very anti-in- 

 quirj-, anti-reading gentlemen who would per- 

 suade us that there is nothing to he learned 

 from books, as there was " no good could come 

 out of Nazareth." To return. — This extraor- 

 dinary substance, which has, within the last 

 eighteen months, attracted so much notice in 

 this countrj- — eliciting publications on its uses 

 and qualities, until some of the most intelligent 

 inqnirres after, and difiusers of Agricultural 

 knowledge are heard, at the very word Guano, 

 to exclaim — " Enough — tlie verj- smell of it is 

 enough ! 



'Give me an ounce of civet good apothecary, to 

 sweeten my imagination.' " 



This substance, we repeat, which is general- 



