•^^£RICAN HERD-Bob^ 



DEVOTED TO 

 AGRICULTURE, HORTICULTURE, AND RURAL AND DOMESTIC AFFAIRS. 



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



Vol. IX — No. 1.] 



8th mo. (August) 15th, 1844. 



[Whole No. 115. 



PUBLISHED MONTHLY, 



BY JOSIAH TATUM, 



EDITOR AND PROPRIETOR, 



No. 50 North Fourth Streel, 



PHILADELPHIA. 



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



For the Fanners' Cabinet. 

 Curious discovery of a Guano Island, i 



To THE Editor, — I send you from Lif- 

 ford's Baltimore Commercial Gazette, into 

 which it was copied from Bell's London 

 Messenger, a curious account of the disco- 

 very of a Guano island, on the coast ofj 

 Africa. 



From the little tJiat I have heard, and 

 that little especially from Commodore T. 

 Ap. Catesby Jones, the African is not es- 

 teemed so strong a fertilizer, as the Peru- 

 vian Guano. Commodore Jones brought 

 home, for gratuitous distribution, a small 

 quantity of the latter, and gave me, with a 

 portion of it, a brief memoir on its nature 

 and uses, which shall be published. The 

 Commodore took some to his estate near 

 here, in Fairfax county, Virginia, and took 

 • occasion privately, to spread a little of it on 

 some rows of his neighbour's corn. The 

 good farmer soon had his attention attracted 

 by the deeper green colour and more vigor- 



Cab.— Vol. IX.— No. 1. 



ous growth of these rows, and was much 

 " struck up," as Jack Downing said, at this 

 unaccountable difference. This is strange 

 doings, said he, it is marvellous enough. At 

 last the Commodore, after enjoying the joke, 

 unravelled the mystery, as many other mys- 

 teries might be, if one had the key ! 



L S. S. 



Washington, D. C, July 8th, 1844. 



We are indebted to the Glasgow Herald, 

 for the following interesting account of the 

 discovery of this valuable manure pn the 

 coast of Africa. The narrative presents a 

 striking illustration of the enterprise of the 

 British merchant, and which, in this, as in 

 numberless other instances, will doubtless 

 result in a great national benefit. 



According to the observations of Captain 

 Farr, of the Ann, of Bristol, who had the 

 honour of bringing last year, the first cargo 

 of African guano to Great Britain, the island 

 of Ichaboe — in which the quality is of a su- 

 perior kind — is situated in 26° 19' of south 

 latitude, and 14° 50' of east longitude, four 

 days' sail north of the Cape of Good Hope, 

 and 14° south of the Portuguese settlement 

 of Benguela. It is a small rocky islet, 

 about two and a half miles from the main- 

 land of Africa, on which, at a distance of 

 half a dozen miles, is a native settlement, 

 and from the inhabitants giving the name of 

 Ichaboe to the island, it has been retained 

 by the same title in our own language. The 

 manner in which the guano treasures on 



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