^^ERICAN HERD-BOOli 



DE VOT ED TO 

 AGRICULTURE, HORTICULTURE, AND RURAL AND DOMESTIC AFFAIRS. 



Perfect Agriculture is the true foundation of all trade and industry.— Liebio. 



Vol. X — No. 9.] 



4th mo. (April) 15th, 1846. 



[Whole No. 135. 



PUBLISHED MONTHLY, 



BY JOSIAH TATUM, 



EDITOR AND PROPRIETOR, 



No. 50 North Fourth Street, 

 PHILADELPHIA. 



Price one dollar per year. — For conditions see last page 



For the Farmers' Cabinet. 

 Use of Guano. 



As the season is now opening for the com- 

 mencing of agricultural matters, the fol- 

 lowing remarks on guano, which is to be 

 used this year more than at any preceding 

 season, may prove of some importance to 

 those who have had no experience in the 

 use of it. 



So few experiments have been made in 

 this country on a scale that would satisfy 

 the agriculturist, that it is almost impossi- 

 ble — it would even be an act of presump- 

 tion — to decide upon its merits in terms of 

 unqualified approbation; and still more dif- 

 ficult and unwise to condemn it with un- 

 qualified censure. Most of the experiments 

 that have been made, belong rather to the 

 minor department of horticulture, than to 

 the more general and more important one 

 of agriculture ; yet it is only so far as these 

 go, and so far as we have the experience of 

 England, that any opinion can be formed of the 



Cab.— Vol. X.— No. 9. 



value of this new material. In England there 

 appears to be no question whatever among 

 her best farmers, that it is the most power- 

 ful manure ever yet known. We might 

 give results taken from the agricultural pe- 

 riodicals of that country, that would prove 

 incontestibly its influence there. But al- 

 though we may take these statements as 

 truths, and coming from so many and such 

 impartial sources, as fully deserving our un- 

 reserved reliance, yet, before we adopt the 

 practice of other countries, in matters of 

 such vital importance as the manuring and 

 management of our land, on whose products 

 the very subsistence of millions depends, it 

 is absolutely necessary for us to know how 

 our modes of agriculture agree or differ — 

 what is the character of the soil to which 

 'the application of this article or any other 

 has been made ; and above all, whether a 

 difference in climate will prohibit, or a simi- 

 larity admit, of repeating here experiments, 

 however successful they may have been 

 there. As to the two first of these matters 

 that we consider as necessary elements in 

 deciding precisely and positively, of the 

 propriety of transferring British practice to 

 American fields, it will not be easy to get 

 any very thorough information. It may be 

 said in general terms, that the best farming 

 in England, is more of an art than it is 

 here — that from the enormous rents that 

 are paid for land from the excessive taxa- 

 tion — though we are gradually beating up 

 to the old country in this particular — that 



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