166 [Senate 



of flowers, and on the older and more woody plant, each cluster pro- 

 duced a good crop of seeds, which this plant seldom produces under 

 good common cultivation. This seed and luxuriance may therefore 

 be fairly attributed to the guano. In order to pursue this subject to- 

 ils furthest limits, I (considered it valuable to discover whether any 

 of the ingredients discovered by chemical analysis of this manure, 

 had found their way permanently into the seed of the sweet corn, 

 with a view of ascertaining its importance in cultivation as an im- 

 prover of the food either for cattle or man. I therelore forwarded 

 a portion of the seed grown with guano, to Mr. A. A. Hayes of Rox- 

 bury, to whose valuable discoveries and researches on this subject I 

 have before alluded, and likewise to Dr. C. T. Jackson, who has also- 

 interested himself much in these matters.* I myself have repeated- 

 Mr. Hayes' experiments with this corn, although I have not been 

 able to separate the ingredients in the seed so as to make a delicate 

 and certain comparison with those seeds grown without guano. Yet- 

 according to the judgment of my eye, there is certainly an increase 

 in the phosphate of the seed with guano. If this fact can be clearly 

 ascertained with one ingredient, it may be fairly supposed to be the 

 case with others ; and when the researches affecting agriculture now 

 being pursued by numerous able men of science, shall have attained 

 a greater degree of precision and perfection, the importance of a 

 knowledge of the ingredients contained in the various foods of cattle 

 and man will become quite manifest. 



One other consideration has suggested itself to me as worthy of 

 notice. In cultivation the choice of fine seed has always been deemed 

 of first rate consequence. If the seed of this first year's sowing with 

 guano has really acquired any more valuable properties than that 

 cultivated without, it is at least probable, from what we already know 

 practically of the laws of vegetation, that these properties may be 

 increased with another year's similar treatment, I have therefore pre- 

 served some of this guanoed corn as seed for the succeeding year, 

 when it will be again tried with the same manure. 



Il is much to be regretted that an import duty of 20 per cent ad va- 

 lorein is levied on guano. This has just been paid on a small quan- 

 tity imported into Boston, a good portion of which lias by the liberality 

 of Capt. John Percival, of the U. S. Navy, been distributed ainongst 

 the members of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. No doubt, 

 however, that on proper representation being made at Washington, an 

 article of so much importance to agriculture, will bo admitted free. I 

 will merely add to these statements, that the quantity of guano 1 con- 



• Since fhe delivery of (his address I have received from Mr. A. A. Hayes the result of 

 his experiment on the corn I transmitted to him. It is, that (he phosphates in the guano 

 corn, are to those in the corn without guano, as 6 to 4. In other worils, the guanoeil corn 

 contains 50 per cent more phosphates than the other. Now according: to the most recent 

 physiological discoveries, it Jo agreed that without phosphates, neither flesh nor blood 

 can be formed, and therefore, that the food for cattle and man is dependent on tlie quan- 

 tity of phospha'es it contains. 



The facts may therefore be s'ated as follows : In a poor soil, with guano, at an expense 

 of about $3 per acre, a crop of Indian corn may be raised at least double in quantity to 

 that raised on well manured land; and this double quantity will con'ain fifty i)er cent 

 more of those ingredients (phosphates) which are absolutely necessary to the formation 

 of flesh and blood, than the other. 



