Guano | Page 7

inches deep, and sows one bushel of wheat and harrows thoroughly, but not deep enough to disturb the guano. His gain has been eight bushels average upon 210 lbs. guano. Thinks Peruvian at $50 a ton preferable to any other at current prices. His land is mostly clayey loam and was so much exhausted by a hundred years hard usage, it was barely able to support the servants, until the Colonel commenced his system of improvements by draining, deep plowing, rotation of crops, lime, plaster, clover, and guano; the latter of which he looks upon as the salvation of lower Virginia; while his large sales of eight or ten hundred acres of corn and wheat, sufficiently attest its value upon that location. His actual annual profits upon the use of guano, cannot be less than two thousand dollars.
Doctor Brockenborough, Doctor Gordon, Messrs. Dobyn, Micou, Garnett and others of Tappahannock and vicinity, have all found the application even upon the bottom lands, profitable, though not to so great an extent as upon the poor old field-pine lands of Mr. Newton; but simply from the reason that his land was utterly worthless before, but after the application of the guano, was increased in value more than its whole cost, besides the profit derived from the crop.
Wm. D. Nelson, a neighbor of Mr. Newton, bought a tract of land for a residence, at $4 an acre, which in its natural condition was not worth cultivating; but with guano will pay all expenses of that and the cultivation and the cost of the land the first crop.
Upon a portion of this land, a poor sandy loam, he applied 200 lbs. Peruvian guano and one bushel of wheat per acre, and made 12 bushels, while a strip through the field, purposely left without guano, did not produce the seed, and remained as destitute of clover as though it never had been sown, forming a very striking contrast to the luxuriant growth upon each side. In another trial he made 10 bushels from one sowed, with 200 lbs. of Patagonian guano, of a very good quality. This is about in proportion to the current price of the two kinds, though the latter cannot be so certainly depended upon for good quality as the Peruvian. Another trial was made with 1,100 lbs. Peruvian and 1,100 lbs. Patagonian, and 11 bushels of seed upon 11 acres which made 160 bushels of wheat of very fine quality, and large growth of straw. Upon 36 acres, same kind of soil, well manured in the previous crop of corn, sowed 36 bushels and made 162. The first had not been manured. The evidence in favor of guano in this case, needs no comment. By an outlay of $40, a much more valuable crop was made from the 11 acres than from the 36; the permanent improvement to the land from guano was much greater than from the manure. In this case the guano was plowed in about four inches deep.
Mr. Nelson thinks the yield of wheat will average in that neighborhood, an increase of 16 bushels for 200 lbs. of Peruvian guano.
H. Chandler, Westmoreland Court House, bought a farm at a price for the whole below the cost of the mansion house alone, because the land was so utterly and hopelessly worn out, as to be past the ability of supporting those engaged in its tillage. When we saw it, we should have been willing to insure the growing crop of wheat at 20 bushels, the result of 210 lbs. of Peruvian guano to the acre; while the clover upon the stubble of the previous year could not be excelled in point of luxuriousness upon the richest field in the State of New York, where the land was valued at $100 an acre.
Mr. Chandler first commenced with 250 lbs. African guano, measuring 3-1/2 bushels, to the acre, upon which he sowed one bushel of wheat. The result 17 bushels to the acre upon land which only gave 5-1/2 bushels in any previous crop. Cost of guano $5; profit, $6 50. The next year he gained an increase of 12 bushels to the acre over previous years, by the use of 250 lbs of Patagonian guano; while the clover, Mr. Chandler thinks, worth more than the whole cost of the application. A still better result was produced last year from 210 lbs. of Peruvian. The soil is a yellow clayey loam, which in its unimproved condition looks about as unpromising for a crop, as the middle of a hard beaten road.
Mr. C. tried guano upon river bottom land, but the improvement was not so remarkable.
We were assured by Mr. C., that many persons who had long been accustomed to look upon the hopeless barrenness of this land, were wont to stop as