158 BULLETIN OF THE BUSSEY INSTITUTION. 
and buys them if he can. I give his opinions as those of a strictly 
practical man, of much experience, and perhaps inferior to none in the 
admirable skill and success of his cultivation.” * 
The fact that Peruvian guano never gained that popularity in New 
England which was very generally accorded to it in more fertile 
regions is another item of evidence of similar import to that just 
adduced with regard to night-soil. Many of the unsatisfactory results 
obtained by the use of guano in field practice hereabouts must, no 
doubt, be ascribed to lack of moisture or to erroneous methods of 
application, such as frequently occasioned disappointment in all 
countries in the days when guano first came into use. But it would 
seem to be plain that the bad repute in which this powerful manure 
is still held by many a New-Englander must depend upon some cause 
more general than either of the foregoing. In a word, the facts that 
guano is but little esteemed by the farmers of this region, and that 
they deem it an exhaustive manure, go to show that our soils lack 
potash. The experience of our farmers with guano, as with night- 
soil, has proved very conclusively that in general no long-continued 
succession of good crops can be obtained from our soil by the use of 
manures which do not contain an adequate supply of potash. 
It has often been urged directly that potassic fertilizers must be 
specially needed by New England soils, since the application of wood- 
ashes is almost everywhere attended with good effects. Throughout 
the old grazing districts of New Hampshire, for example, the inhab- 
itants firmly believe that the land has ‘run out,” because too much 
potash has been taken from it by continually carrying off hay for the 
winter’s support of cattle. But their argument lacks precision, based 
as it is upon the theoretical inference just stated, and upon the experi- 
mental fact, well known in that region, as it is almost everywhere 
in New England, that wood-ashes have a remarkable effect in recu- 
perating worn-out lands; for both the exhaustion by cropping and 
the fertilizing action of the ashes might be due to phosphates taken 
off in the hay and contained in the ashes as much as to potash or 
even more. In consequence of this uncertainty, chemists and agri- 
cultural writers have often paid less attention to the popular convic- 
* H. Colman, Fourth Report of the Agriculture of Massachusetts, Boston, 
1841, p. 406. 
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