OL. \XU. N » 7. 



AND HORTICULTURAL REGISTER 



53 



GUANO. 



Tlio use iif llie diin^' of birds is not a mndern 

 prove iiient, for Ibiit of poultry lias been adopted 

 a inaniire from a very early period. M. P. Cato, , , , 



, earliest of the airncullural writers, in his work , '"'•:'ed wul, ibe so 

 Timends the nso of pigeons' dung for mradows, 

 •n lands ;itid >riirden>-. And John Worlidcre, in 

 :i9, was warm in the praise of the dung of fowls, 

 'igeons' or hens' dun?," he says, " is incompara- 

 i: one load is worth ton loads of other dung, 

 i is llieriforc usually sown on wheat or barley 

 It lieth far olTand is not easy to be helped." 

 id he says, in another place, "A flock of wild 

 ese had pitched upon a parcel of green wheat, 

 d had eaten it up clean, and sat thereon and 

 nu'ed it several nights ; the owner despaired of 

 ving any crop that year ; but the contrary hap. 

 ned, for he had a far richer stock of wheat there 

 in any of his neighbors had." 

 The most elaborate set of experiments npon the 

 ano, or dung of sea-fowl, with which I am ac- 

 aintcd, were made in 1810, for potatoes and 

 ingel-wurzel, at the island of St. Helena, by the 

 ,e Gen. Beatson. The soil on which these ex- 

 riments were made, was rather stiff, being coni- 

 sed of blackish mould, intermixed with friable 

 ; clay. The following table gives the results of 

 ery experiment: 35 loads of horse dung litter 

 r acre were used, 35 of hogs' dung litter, and 35 

 ishels per acre of the guano. 

 1. With potato seed the size of walnuts, planted 

 dole — 



Guano, 554 Busk. 



Horse dung, 583 



Pigs' dung, 447 



Soil simple, 395 



8. Large potatoes cut in pieces — 



Guano, 589 Busk. 



Horse dung, 531 



Pigs' dung, 4()6 



S>iil simple, 408 



3. From middle eye of potato — 



Guano, 576 Busk. 



Horse dung, 563 



Pigs' dung, 485 



Soil simple, 337 



4. With small potatoes planted whole — 



Guano, 628 Busk. 



Horse dung, 583 



Pigs' dung, 544 



Soil simple, 570 



With mangel-wurzel, the produce per acre on 

 similar soil was as follows : 



Tons roots. 

 Soil simple, 19 1-2 



Hogs' dung and ashes, 3C0 bush, per acr. 66 1-2 

 Guano, 3."} bush, per acre, 77 3-4 



The accuracy of this valuable communication 

 OS been most amply confirmed by my own expori- 

 lenls in the culture of potatoes with guano, as 

 'ell as H trial of it upon grass lands. Three cart- 

 )ads of the guano per acre, appear to me equiva- 

 ;nt in effect to seventy loads of good rotten dung. 

 The effect of the guano upon grass lands is 

 omparativoly greater than in the potato experi- 

 lent. Kroin what cause this proceeds, it m^y be 

 ifficult to explain ; but as Dr. Priestley found, by 



ing readily washed among the roots 6f vegetables, 

 by the first falls of rain, are circumstances that 

 may possibly rendr'r its effects as a top-dressing 

 greatly superior to those it produces when it is 



It is a matter not unworthy the attention of che- 

 mists, to consider whether a mixture similar to the 

 guano, and of eri'ial efticacy, cannot be formed by 



art not only at a cost so reasonable as at once to 



make the farmer independent of the importer, but 

 also in f uch abundance as at the same time to 

 place BO valuable a manure within the reach of all. 

 Several attempts have been made to manufac- 

 ture an artificial guano, and the results have shown 

 considerable success. 



The following mixture contains the various in- 

 gredients tound in guano in nearly the average 

 proportions ; and ftir Johnston believes it is likely 

 to be at least as efficacious as the natural guano, 

 for all the crops to which the latter has hitherto 

 been applied : 



315 lbs. bone dust ; 



100 lbs. sulphate of ammonia ; 



5 lbs. pearlash ; 

 100 lbs. common salt; 

 11 lbs. dry sulphate of soda. 



531 lbs. of artificial guano. 



The above mixture would cost in England, about 

 £2 ; the imported guano sells for £12 per ton. 



In England, the guano is an entirely new fer- 

 tilizer. About 20 casks were imported in 1840, 

 by Mr Myers, of Liverpool ; in 1841, one or two 

 more cargoes arrived from the Pacific. In 1842, 

 forty thousand tons were imported into England. 

 — Joknsori's Farmer's Encydop. 



Enncig. — A well-known insect, common in 

 damp places, and often found in numbers under 

 stones and beneath the bark of trees. They do 

 much damage in gardens by preying upon the 

 fruit. The English common name, and also the 

 French pierce-oreille, relate to a habit absurdly at- 

 tributed to these insects, of penetrating the ears. 



It is a curious fact that the earwig sits upon her 

 eggs like a hen ; and when the young are hatciied, 

 they oreep under the mother like a brood of chick- 

 ens under a hen. 



They are very injurious to flowers, eating holes 

 in the blossoms, and otherwise disfiguring them, 

 particularly the dahlia. It is common with Eng- 

 lish gardeners to hang up among the flowers and 

 fruit trees subject to their attacks, pieces of hol- 

 low reeds, lobster claws, and the like, which offer 

 enricing places of retreat for these insects on the 

 approach of daylight, and by means thereof great 

 numbers of them are obtained in the morning. — lb. 



NUTRII'IVE MATTER OF DIFFERENT 

 VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES. 

 Davy, in his Elements of Agricultural Chemis- 

 try, gives the following table, showing the quantity 

 of soluble or nutritive matters contained in 1000 

 parts of different vegetable substances, examined 

 in their green state : 



Jlnt. — An insect extremely injurious to pasture 

 lands and gardens ; in the former by throwing up 

 hills, and in the latter by feeding on the fruit, and 

 foliage. As night-soil is found to destroy them 

 when spread upon their hills, it may be the least 

 objeclionable application to the bottom of trees to 

 prevent their ascending them. A liquor prepared 

 by boiling black soap with sulphur in rain-water, 

 has been used for the destruction of these insects, 



Seasorxing Posts and Timher. — Posts should 

 never be put in the ground in a green state, not- 

 withstanding they will last longest in wet ground. 

 Constant wet from water will not injure them, but 

 the lermentation of tlio natural sap in the wood 

 hastens decay. We ought also to name in con- 

 nexion with this, the importance of suffering the 

 sills of a house and other buildings to become dry 

 before they are used. It is true we now set build- 

 ings higher than we formerly did, and we take 

 smaller timber for sills, and both these practices 

 tend to favor the durability of the timber — yet we 

 are often obliged to put in new sills, on account of 

 the timber being used in an unfit state. ' A stick 

 of timber eight inches square, is better for any 

 building, ns a sill, than one twelve inches square. 

 — A". Y. Meckanic. 



Use of Salt for Celery. — The Gardener's Chron- 

 icle recommends the use of salt as manure for cel- 

 ery, to be applied by watering the plants with 

 weak brine. It says that the growth will be there- 

 by greatly promoted. The experiment is worth 

 trying, but care must be used not to apply too 

 much ; and as no exact directions are given, it 

 must be settled by experiments. — Genesee Far. 



it is said, with considerable success. Where this 

 xperiment, that vegetables throve best when they i)|q„(,r is employed, the ground infested by the ants 

 vere made to grow in air made putrid by the de-ig|,o„|j [,e thoroughly saturated with 11.-76. 

 ;onip<isition of animal and vegetable substances, it 

 nay be inferred that the very strong effluvia from 

 he sea-fowl dung or guano, together with its be- 



The manufacture of silk was 

 Europe from India A. D. 551. 



ntroduced into 



To Destroy Thistles, Fern and Coltsfoot.— Hav- 

 ing once a pasture-field that seemed one entire 

 bed of common thistles, and having occasion to 

 cart manure across it to another field, I observed 

 all the thistles completely killed wherever the 

 carts went; I therefore set to and rolled the whole 

 field with a cast-iron roller, once in the latter end 

 of May, and twice in the beginning of June. The 

 field has been free from thistles ever since. Fera 

 and coltsfoot I have exterminated in the same way. 

 — London liort. Reg. 



If every man would mind his own busine.^s, ef- 

 ery man's business would be attended to. 



