1846. 



GENESEE FARMER. 



165 



From the American Agriculturist. 



Benefit of Guano. 



As it may be for tlie public utility to hear some- 

 thing on the score of Peruvian guano, I will give 

 you my experience on the subject. 



Last year I used about three and a half tons 

 of it in various ways, during the spring and sum- 

 mer, and must say I think it the cheapest and 

 most effective manure I have ever tried, particu- 

 larly as a top-dressing for grass lands. The way 

 I prepare the guano for use is this : I plow a 

 knoll of loamy soil, remove all the sods to the 

 barnyard, harrow the ground to make it fine, 

 then spread a layer of guano half an inch thick, 

 then shovel on fine dirt five inches thick, then a 

 layer of guano as before, then dirt again, till I 

 get the quantity desired. This must lie a week 

 or ten days in compost, to incorporate the guano 

 with the soil ; it must then be shoveled over, 

 and all the lumps broken and well mixed ; you 

 can then put it in your cart, and spread it from 

 the tail about as thick as you would ashes. I 

 put on at the rate of 500 lbs. Peruvian guano to 

 an acre, which started my grass right ahead, 

 yielding two tons per acre, where I should not 

 have had over 500 lbs. of hay without it. 



My potatoes benefited greatly by the use of 

 guano, turning out astonishingly — " the observed 

 of all observers" — and I believe it to be a cure 

 for the potatoe disease, as we had no rot where 

 guano was applied. Applied to corn, I found it 

 equally beneficial. I planted a lot of pasture 

 land, a poor, sandy soil, and mostly grown over 

 to«moss. I spread on forty ox-cart loads of sta- 

 ble manure to the acre, and plowed it in; but 

 fearing that would not overcome the inertia of 

 the soil, I applied 500 lbs. of guano per acre, in 

 this way, after harrowing, instead of running my 

 rows with a plow. I did it with a small harrow 

 made for the purpose, not m'er 14 inches wide, 

 but heavy. The guano was lh6n spread in those 

 drills, and then the harrow run again, to mix it 

 with the soil, and put it in fine tilth for planting. 



My corn yielded 70 bushels per acre, whei'eas 

 some rows with no guano, gave at the rate of 28 

 bushels per acre. This I think conclusive. I 

 recommend it also for fruit trees. 



Seekonk, Mass. J. W. Bowers, 



Hay and Fodder Crops. 



Hay is now quoted in New Orleans at $26 per 

 ton. In the river towns above, it is still higher. 

 The hay crops in the North and West were very 

 light this past season ; so light were they, in 

 many places, that distress amongst the stock must 

 have ensued, had not their agricultural journals 

 pointed out to the farmers the means of remedy- 

 ing the evil — by sowing corn and oats mixed ; 

 drilling corn alone, so thickly as to cover the 

 ground ; sowing millet, and other fodder crops ; 

 and by cutting up all the fodder they feed out, 

 by running it tlirough a cutting-box. Until the 



next year's crop comes in, hay will continue to 

 rise in our markets. 



We can do much to regulate the price, by do- 

 ing as our Northern neighbors have done — sow- 

 ing oats, millet, &c. It is the extreme of folly 

 in any planter to buy hay, or even corn. Ber- 

 muda grass will cut double the weight of hay to 

 the acre that any grass in the North or West will. 

 Crab-grass makes excellent hay, and a great deal 

 of it ; and a good crop can be had after cutting 

 a crop of oats or millet. Even bitter coco makes 

 good hay. In no part of the world do oats suc- 

 ceed better than in Mississippi ; the Egyptian 

 (winter) oats, when sowed in September, afford 

 capital grazing all winter, and will yield, if the 

 ground is suitable, and they have been well put 

 in, forty to sixty bushels per acre of oats, weigh- 

 ing thirty-eight to forty-two pounds per bushel. 

 Millet is an excellent fodder crop. — Ncio Orleans 

 Commercial Times. 



A Guano Mu-mmy. — The recent excavations 

 at Ichahoe for the new fertilizer, have resulted 

 in other freightage save such as could be devoted 

 to Agricultural interests. A miwimy has been 

 bi'ought to London and deposited in the Egyptian 

 Hall of that city which has been wonderfully 

 preserved by the ammonia of the island. The 

 body is that of a full grown man enclosed in a 

 coflin which is yet perfectly entire as also the 

 trowsers and shirt of the deceased, the former of 

 duck and the latter of cotton, both of which on 

 being tried, retained all the strength of the new 

 fabric. The body itself, says an account in a 

 London paper, seems as if it were tanned leather; 

 the flesh has become in a great measure absorbed 

 with all the softer animal tissues ; but the muscu- 

 lar development remains firm, and the veins and 

 tendons of the extremities are curiously shown 

 stretched over the bones. The teeth are still 

 white and sound; and the hair still curls on the 

 head. The color of the body is a dark brown ; 

 and the whole exhibition is an interesting one, 

 particularly for those who like anatomical and 

 physiological curiosities. It is impossible to say 

 with certainty how long the body had lain previ- 

 ous to its discovery ; but the probability is that a 

 century has elapsed since the mate or one of the 

 officers of a merchant ship running down the Af- 

 rican coast, died, and since a party of sailors land- 

 ed for an hour to bury the body of their shipmate 

 on a lone and nameless island, tenanted only by 

 sea-birds, on the desert coast of Africa. 



Old authors are profuse in their praise of 

 Sage, and it is said the Chinese esteem it as su- 

 perior to the best of their own tea. Philips states 

 that the Dutch send out dried Sage leaves to 

 China, for which they receive four times their 

 weight of tea. 



Wit is folly, unless a wise man has the keep- 

 ing of it. 



