MANUKES. 119 



occasion the neglect and consequent loss of our do- 

 mestic fertilizers. 



The Peruvian guano (which is considered the 

 best) is brought from islands off the coast of Peru. 

 The birds which frequent these islands live almost 

 entirely on fish, and drop their excrements here in 

 a climate where rain is unknown, and where, from 

 the dryness of the air, there is but little loss sustained 

 by the manure. It is brought to this country in 

 large quantities, and is an excellent fertilizer, supe- 

 rior even to night soil. 



Injudiciously used, Peruvian guano may become 

 a curse to a country instead of a blessing. It stimu- 

 lates crops to an inordinate growth and causes them, 

 on the poorer soils, to seek out the last available atom 

 of some mineral which it does not in itself supply 

 in sufficient quantity. When this last atom has 

 been sold off in the crop, the power of the guano to 

 produce a crop, to which that mineral is largely 

 necessary, has ceased. It is not the guano, but the 

 crop that has exhausted the land. If all its mineral 

 constituents had been judiciously returned, the soil 

 would not be made poorer, on the contrary, it 

 would be made better by the decomposition of the 

 roots left in the soil. The best way to use guano, 

 is to compost it with other manures or to mix it 

 with fine earth or muck. In either case, its lumps 

 should be crushed to powder, so that it may be evenly 

 distributed through the soil. 



The composition of various kinds of guano may 

 be found in the Section on Analysis. 



