Guano

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Guano, by Solon Robinson

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Title: Guano A Treatise of Practical Information for Farmers
Author: Solon Robinson
Release Date: December 23, 2006 [EBook #20168]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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GUANO:
A Treatise of Practical Information for Farmers;
CONTAINING
PLAIN DIRECTIONS HOW TO APPLY PERUVIAN GUANO
TO THE VARIOUS
CROPS AND SOILS OF AMERICA,
WITH A
BRIEF SYNOPSIS OF ITS HISTORY, LOCALITY, QUANTITY, METHOD OF PROCURING, PROSPECT OF CONTINUED SUPPLY, AND PRICE; ANALYSIS OF ITS COMPOSITION, AND VALUE AS A FERTILIZER, OVER ALL OTHER MANURES.
"If the experience of the last few years has taught us one thing more certainly than another, it is the unfailing excellence of Guano for every kind of crop which requires manure."
PREPARED AND PUBLISHED
BY SOLON ROBINSON,
FOR
MESSRS. F. BARREDA & BROTHER,
AGENTS FOR THE PERUVIAN GOVERNMENT AT BALTIMORE;
AND
THEODORE W. RILEY, ESQ., THEIR AGENT IN NEW YORK.
NEW YORK: 1853.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1852, by
SOLON ROBINSON,
in the Clerks Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York.

INTRODUCTION
The rapidly increasing use of guano, in the United States, and the growing conviction upon the public mind, that it is the cheapest and best purchasable manure in the world, together with the fact of a great want of information among American farmers, as to the best mode of applying it to the soil, has induced the agents of the Peruvian Government for the sale of guano in the United States, to employ the author of this pamphlet to collect and publish such information.
It is hoped the favorably and well known name of the author, as an agricultural writer and traveller, together with his extended opportunities of witnessing the application and effect of guano upon the various soils and climates of this country, will give this work such a character, as to induce every improving farmer, gardener, or horticulturist, in America to give it a careful perusal. The author believes it will be found to contain all and much more than its title imports, and be of great value to every person using or dealing in guano; as the analysis, not only of the pure article is given, but that of several specimens of adulterated samples, so as to enable the farmer to avoid being cheated by base counterfeits.
The author will be much obliged to any gentleman who will furnish him for publication in future editions of this work, or in the columns of THE AGRICULTOR, any details of experiments in the use of Peruvian guano, which will be useful to the farmers of this country, as it is his desire, as well as the guano agents, to give them useful facts; not only to increase the sale, but the fertility of the land, and wealth of the owners.
With assurances to my friends that I have no other interest in the increased consumption of guano, I am most sincerely and respectfully
Your old Friend,
SOLON ROBINSON.
New York, October 1852.

A TREATISE ON GUANO.

PERUVIAN GUANO--ITS USES AND BENEFITS.
Of all manures procurable by the American Farmer, guano from the rainless islands of Peru, is perhaps not only the most concentrated--the most economical to the purchaser--but by its composition, as we will show by analysis, the best adapted to all the crops cultivated in this country requiring manure. For wheat, especially, it is the one thing needful. The mineral constituents of cultivated plants, as will also be shown by analysis, are chiefly lime, magnesia, potash, soda, chlorine, sulphuric and phosphoric acid; all of which will be found in Peruvian guano. Nitrogen, the most valuable constituent of stable or compost manures, exists in great abundance in guano, in the exact condition required by plants to promote rapid vegetation. The concentration of all these valuable properties in the small bulk of guano, renders it particularly valuable to farms situated in districts unprovided with facilities of cheap transportation. In some hilly regions, it would be utterly impossible to make any ordinary manure pay for transportation. With guano the case is very different--one wagon will carry enough with a single pair of horses to dress 12 or 16 acres; while of stable manure it would require as many or more loads to each acre to produce the same effect.
But this is not the greatest advantage in the use of this fertilizer; the first application puts the land in such condition, that judicious after cultivation renders it continuously