1857. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



243 



HOME-MADE GUANO. 



By a communication in the American (Baltimore) 

 Fanner, we J earn that Mr. Thomas D. Rotch, a 

 gentleman from Scotland, but who claims an 

 American descent — his father being a New Bedford 

 man, and his mother from Nantucket — has secured 

 in this country a patent for the manufacture of a 

 manure by the treatment of the blood and offlils of 

 animals with sulphuric acid or other acids, or with 

 copperas or other salts. Statements are made of 

 the effects of this manure in England, that repre- 

 sent it as far superior to the best guano. A com- 

 pany for its manufacture has been organized in 

 Philadelphia, and it is proposed to establish three 

 others, — one in Baltimore, one in New York, and 

 another in Boston. The patent in England was se- 

 cured by a Mr. Oldham, who sold it to a compa- 

 ny for fifty thousand dollars, and a "royalty" of 

 two English shillings per ton upon all the manure 

 thus made. That is a pretty tall price, but we 

 have no reason to doubt its correctness. Mr. 

 Rotch fixes the price of his manure at $45 per ton 

 of 2000 lbs. 



We have long thought, and have often said, that 

 something ought to be done to prevent the waste 

 of fertilizing matter in our cities. We hope Mr. 

 Rotch will meet with such success as to incite the 

 skill and ingenuity of others to devise means by 

 which the very life-blood of our farms may be re- 

 turned to enrich our hungry soils, instead of breed- 

 ing disease and death in our cities, by being suf- 

 fered to polute the air and water by which they are 

 surrounded. 



Mr. Rotch asserts that the manufacture of any 

 manure in which blood and sulphuric acid are used 

 "renders the sellers, the consumers and the manu- 

 facturers equally liable for damages." 



We think that no patent ought to authorize so 

 broad a claim as the above, which we give in Mr. 

 R.'s own words and italics. 



ey, to use those manures that he is acquainted with, 

 or profit by studying the wants of his soil. And not 

 till the farmer better understands the nature of the 

 soil, and the influence of air, will he be able to sup- 

 port and defend an outlay beyond what his own 

 land possesses. And when the farmer learns to 

 manufacture and invest his soil with a fund that 

 bids defiance to foreign influences, from his own 

 precincts and'lal^oratory, then he may purchase con- 

 centrated fertilizers at fiiir prices. 



The admixture of different soils might very con- 

 veniently be made at no considerable expense, which 

 would be of permanent value. Lime and plaster 

 can be used to supply deficiencies, and restore soils 

 to good condition, if we had the intelligence and en- 

 terprise to manage them. It is no great credit to 

 a farmer to send to New Jersey for earthy constit- 

 uents, when he has suitable lands for jjcat, and a 

 plenty of it, because some prodigal farmer recom- 

 mends marl. Money and time are to an unpardon- 

 able extent expended upon the farm, the revenue 

 of which fills the cofl'ers of the quack manure deal- 

 er ; and the time spent yields us no gratification, 

 but to know that we are duped. E. j. ^y. 



For the Tiew England Farmer. 



FERTILIZERS. 



Mr. Editor : — It is unfair to pronounce judg- 

 ment upon partial trial. If a system advocated plau- 

 fihly, proves through our misapplication unadvan- 

 tageous, who is to be censured ? If a manure is 

 given to a soil for a crop that does not demand it, 

 and can in no wise be taken up to increase the ex- 

 pected harvest, who is to be blamed ? The manure, 

 the soil, or the one who misapplies, and does not 

 adopt the proper arrangement to realize all the 

 strength of what is to be afibrded ? 



It is the opinion of the writer, so far as his obser- 

 vation and experience has served him, that the pres- 

 ent price demanded for any manures, especially con- 

 centruted, cannot be paid with profit by the farmer, 

 only under peculiar circumstances. Acknowledg- 

 ing these premises, it is positively necessary for the 

 farmer's patience, as well as for his time and mon- 



For the New England Parmer. 



ADVANTAGES OF UNDERDRAINING. 



I recollect a remark once made by Prof. Mapes, 

 in an address before our agricultural society, in re- 

 gard to underdaining. He said, in effect, "that all 

 land, no matter how dry, needed underdraining, 

 even to the tops of our hills" — and he gave his rea- 

 sons for the remark ; but the remark then, not- 

 withstanding his reasons, was received with many 

 a smile of incredulity by the farmers then and there 

 assembled, myself amongst the number. But I, 

 for one, am disposed to look at the remark as le^s 

 chimerical than when 1 first listened to it ; and, in 

 fact, I find myself frequently almost advocating the 

 theory. I am intending to lay a few thousand of 

 tile the coming season on a piece of land apparent- 

 ly not over burthened with water, Amorg the 

 reasons that induce me to make the outlay for un- 

 derdraining, the following extracts from an article 

 originally published in the Genesee Fanner, and 

 quoted into the Working Farmer, volume 5, No. 

 9, ])age 199, are included. The author says : 

 — "It will remove all excess of water in the 

 fall, winter and early spring, when it needs but lit- 

 tle ; and in the summer time, vvhen plants need 

 large quantities of water, and the undrained soil is 

 very dry, it will make the soil quite moist, and 

 supply the plants with sufHcient water. Every far- 

 mer who has tried underdraining, knows whether 

 he can understand the cause or not, that his drained 

 land is much drier in a wet time, and more humid 

 in a dry time, than his undrained land, and that it 

 will stand a drought very much better; in fact, 

 that droughts seldom affect his well drained land," 

 Then, after giving the reasons that exist for this 

 state of things, he goes on to say that, "When a soil, 

 especially a retentive one, is underdained, the water, 

 as it percolates through it, leaves innumerable 

 small pores ; it becomes like a sponge, a reticulated 

 mass of fine tubes. These tubes, when the surface 

 is wetter than the subsoil, carry down the water to 

 the drains below ; and when the surface is dryer 

 than the subsoil, as it is in a drought, these tubes 

 carry up the water to the roots of the plants." Un- 



