202 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
JUEY. 
: &f improved plows; in a more careful saving of 
manures, as their increased price in many towns 
| and. large villages fully attests; in the more gene- 
j ral introduction of underdraining, imperfect as it 
I Is in most cases, and in the increased use of the 
Wheat-drill. 
These improvements have been chiefly effected 
through the agency of agricultural periodicals. If 
there is a single bad farmer—one who is retrograd¬ 
ing or stationary, who is exhausting his land, or 
making a scanty living by shiftless husbandry,— 
who' regularly reads such a paper, we have not 
seen him. On the contrary, we do not know 
a single practical farmer, who is a constant 
and interested reader of a good farming periodi¬ 
cal, who is not much in advance of his non-reading 
neighbors. More than this, we are confident there 
is not one in twenty, who shows unmistakable 
marks of thrift on his premises, who does not keep 
up with the agricultural intelligence of the day, 
directly or indirectly, derived from reading. Ag¬ 
ricultural societies, it is true, have done their full 
share • but they owe their very existence, in most 
cases, to the constant stimulus of the press; and 
the useful facts which they develop would reach 
but very few, were they not borne on the wings of 
these myriad messengers all through the country. 
Vaulable improvements, are made in farm imple¬ 
ments ; but their progress in use would be slow in¬ 
deed, but for the thousand-tongued machine which 
points out their advantages and successful achiev- 
ments to the retired farmers in every corner of 
the country. A vast amount of useful informa¬ 
tion was thrown open to the public by the trial of 
implements at Geneva; but not one in ten, proba¬ 
bly, of the few hundreds of persons who witnessed 
the trial, were non-reading farmers, for why should 
these seek for more knowledge? By means of the 
agricultural press, that information was not con¬ 
fined to the few hundreds, but was thrown abroad 
for a hundred thousand readers. 
There are a hundred millions of bushels of wheat 
yearly raised in the United States, worth eighty 
million dollars. An improvement is, perhaps, 
made in cultivation, or in the variety sown, which 
adds one bushel in twenty, without increasing the 
cost. The farmer who raises a thousand bushels, 
and who makes the discovery, is benefited forty 
dollars annually—equal to the interest on a capi¬ 
tal of some six hundred dollars. He may per¬ 
haps communicate the discovery to a few of his 
neighbors, but the matter will here end or make 
very slow progress through the community. But 
if an agricultural press speaks to every farmer, 
the forty dollar interest and the six hundred prin¬ 
cipal, immediately sw-ell to the enormous some of 
four millions yearly, the interest on some sixty mil¬ 
lions. Now, this is a single item in a great number; 
and although every man cannot at the present 
moment be reached, in consequence of the limited 
circulation of these papers, yet we have not the 
slightest doubt, that the multifarious improve¬ 
ments in the agriculture of our country, which 
have been already effected through the agency of 
the press, by improving all the different breeds of 
animals, modes of cultivation, varieties of seeds, 
and agricultural implements, have already amount¬ 
ed in the aggregate to a permanent value of many 
times sixty millions. 
Can statesmen and patriots, then, who view with 
solicitude the mighty increase of the nation, as the 
great flood of human beings is rolling westward, 
and is gradually filling up the almost interminable 
wilds of the west,—can they render a better ser¬ 
vice than the encouragement,—the strong, con¬ 
stant, efficient encouragement, of the diffusion of 
agricultural knowledge? The benefits thus con¬ 
ferred are not to be measured merely by the dol¬ 
lars and cents which they shall add to the value 
of national property, by the highly improved and 
profitable farms of its prosperous people, instead 
of worn-out and exhausted estates scarcely afford¬ 
ing food for a starving population • a higher influ¬ 
ence,—beyond the power of figures to estimate,— 
is the social and moral effect, inevitably resulting 
from the cultivation of comfortable and attractive 
homes. What an eminent blessing then—worthy 
of the preserving efforts of every patriotic citizen— 
would be the substitution of the literature of ru¬ 
ral improvement, for the present almost universal 
spread of newspapers, bristling with angry poli¬ 
tics; the one promoting peace and the pleasures 
of country life; the other the spirit of feud and 
contention, and a thirst for political office—a wide 
difference indeed in the influences to be exerted 
in impressing the developing character of a great 
nation, rapidly approaching in number the leaves 
of the forest for multitude. 
Value of Guano. 
Several of our correspondents having lately in¬ 
quired relative to the value of guano, we give an 
abstract of a series of accurate experiments, re¬ 
ported some time since in the New-England Far¬ 
mer, by Dr. Keene of North Providence, R. I. 
They are the more valuable on account of the care 
used in arriving at the precise results, instead 
of the more common mode of vague guessing. 
Exp. 1. Rye was sown broadcast in autumn, at 
the rate of 8 bushels per acre, for spring soiling. 
Early in spring, a compost consisting of one part 
guano mixed with three parts of dry loam, was 
spread on the ground at the rate of 320 lbs. per 
acre, costing seven dollars. The growth on this 
portion soon became the greenest, tallest, and 
thickest, and continued so. About the first of 
summer, a square rod of green food cut from the 
unmanured part, weighed 60 lbs; from the gua¬ 
noed. 105 lbs. When matured, the unmanured 
bundles weighed 35 lbs. per rod; the guanoed, 
44 lbs. The grain from the former weighed 10 lbs.; 
from the latter 16 lbs., being a gain of 6 lbs. per 
rod or 16 bushels per acre, which, at 80 cents per 
bushel, gives $12.80, and the increase of straw at 
$7 per ton, gives $1.50, or a return of $14.30 for 
seven dollars worth of guano. 
Exp. 2. Grass—old meadow—the guano compost 
applied early in spring at the rate of 320 lbs- guano 
per acre, or $7; another portion top-dressed with 
compost well mixed of equal parts of cow-dung 
and peat, sixteen loads per acre, costing $24. The 
guanoed portion soon surpassed the other in tall¬ 
ness and thickness—and when weighed, the gua¬ 
noed part yielded 62 lbs. hay, nearly dry, and the 
other 42 lbs.—a balance of 20 lbs per rod or about 
a ton and a half per acre, of partly dry hay, in 
favor of the guanoed portion at $7, over that treat¬ 
ed with barn compost at $24. 
Exp. 3. Grass—guanoed as before mentioned— 
another portion left untouched. The guanoed 
yielded 60lbs. per rod, the unguanoed 32 lbs. 
Exp. 4. Grass—low, reclaimed meadow, ma¬ 
nured three years before with 30 loads barn com¬ 
post per acre. A guanoed rod (320 lbs ) yielded 
