THE AMEKICAN GUANO. 77 



crops, which it is remarkably well suited for, it will pay all 

 expenses, and then, if you get anything else, it is profit. 

 When I commenced, I cultivated two acres, and bought from 

 thirty to forty cords of manure a year. Now I cultivate eleven 

 acres, and buy none. 



This matter of poultry droppings has received too little 

 attention. I have a few statements given by practical men, 

 but they are so indefinite that I have concluded to give you 

 only a few facts from my own experience. In 1870-71, I 

 had seventy-five hens constantly confined for one year. The 

 droppings were all saved by being kept perfectly dry. At 

 the end of the year, I found that I had one hundred and fifty 

 bushels of nearly pure hen-manure from the seventy-five hens, 

 which, after weighing two or three bushels, I estimated was 

 equal to 2,200 pounds. After pulverizing the droppings, I 

 mixed three hundred pounds of plaster and three tons of fine 

 loam, pretty dry and rather poor in quality, thoroughly with 

 the droppings, making (barring loss in mixing) four tons and 

 a half of American guano, as rich in nitrogenous and other 

 valuable qualities as would be bought in our market at that 

 time at sixty dollars a ton. I got two hundred and seventy 

 dollars' worth of manure, and the plaster, soil, and time of 

 preparing it cost about twenty dollars, leaving two hundred 

 and fifty dollars' worth of fertilizers from our seventy-five 

 hens in one year. This fertilizer (American guano) was used 

 in various ways, beside the best well-decomposed manures 

 to be had, and the best special fertilizers, and invariably I 

 have received the greatest benefit from the use of the Amer- 

 ican guano. 



Since that time, I have used hundreds of tons of the same 

 fertilizer, on every kind of crop. I have put it on the surface 

 and harrowed it in, have applied it in a dry and a liquid state 

 in the hill, cautiously, and spread it broadcast on my old 

 strawberry-beds, and it has always given me satisfactory 

 returns. I have used manures for thirty j^ears, and am better 

 pleased with American guano than any other. I have found 

 that when my fowls were kept confined, they have always 

 averaged as much manure per head as they did in the year 

 specified ; i. e., three dollars. I can make more manure from 

 one thousand fowls, where they are confined in the way I 



