SECRETARY'S REPORT. 85 



times, but there are some objections to it. In the first place, 

 the guano should be in the ground, it seems to me, before most 

 crops are planted, that it may be so completely dissolved and 

 incorporated with the soil as to produce its full effect. In the 

 second place, the rootlets of plants in spring are exceedingly 

 tender ; and when they shoot down into the guano, as they will, 

 in most cases, before it is so mixed with the soil as to have 

 become harmless, they will inevitably be destroyed ; and if the 

 destruction of the whole plant does not follow, it will have but 

 a sickly and feeble growth. No guano is worth fifty dollars a 

 ton that will not produce this effect. In the third place, in 

 cases of drought, guano in the hill, however perfectly it may 

 have been prepared before its application, will ordinarily prove 

 an injury rather than a benefit. It seems difficult also to see 

 the advantage of this practice ; for we need have no fear that 

 the roots will not find the manure if it is mixed with the soil. 



I do not wish to be understood to be opposed to the judi- 

 cious use of guano. It is now pretty generally agreed that 

 ammonia is the substance which stimulates most powerfully 

 the growth of plants ; and if the farmer has not enough of it in 

 his home-made stable manure, guano is the cheapest form in 

 which it can be bought. It not unfrequently happens that, 

 after using all possible means at command, by way of the muck 

 meadow, loam, leaves, and a thousand other things within the 

 reach of most farmers, for increasing his supplies, he still fails 

 to make as much as his land demands. It then becomes a 

 question of importance with the farmer where and how to supply 

 his wants the cheapest and with least labor. It is a question 

 of dollars and cents, and the man who knows his own interest 

 will study it out. 



The farmer will sometimes prefer a cheap kind of guano to 

 the best Peruvian, simply because the price is a little less. 

 There can be no greater mistake. The properties of the best 

 guano are well known, and we can predict what results will fol- 

 low the application of a certain quantity per acre. With most 

 other guanos there is no certainty as to the results, and the dif- 

 ference in price is seldom proportionate to the difference in 

 quality. The risk in buying them is consequently much great- 

 er, and the farmer cannot ordinarily afford to sacrifice both the 



