Guano | Page 8

they rode past this field of clover, and look at it with utter astonishment. Some could not be satisfied with looking, but would drive to the house to inquire what magical power had been used to produce such a strange metamorphosis in the appearance of the place. When assured it was all effected by guano, they went away--not satisfied--but unbelieving.
What tends much to increase the effect of this improvement, is the fact, that directly opposite lies another tract, still in its barren condition, lately purchased by Dr. Spence, a very enterprising gentleman, imbued with the spirit of improvement, which will soon be brought into the same condition, notwithstanding its unforbidding appearance.
Mr. S. B. Atwell who owns an adjoining farm, has been equally successful in the use of guano. Before using it, his wheat upon 20 acres was hardly sufficient to pay for harvesting. The first crop after using it, 400 bushels. He has also increased the crop of corn from 20 to 260 barrels by lime, guano and clover. In the meantime, the land has increased in value in about the same ratio.
In Lancaster County, we saw a field of wheat on the farm of Dr. Leland, sown upon corn ground, one part with 200 lbs. of Peruvian guano to the acre, the other with a full dressing of hog-pen manure, by the side of which the ground was seen in its natural barrenness, scarcely making a show of greenness; while the rank growth of the guanoed portion made as great a contrast with that manured upon the opposite side.
Guanoed wheat upon the farm of Col. Downing in the same county showed as great a contrast with land both limed and manured; while directly alongside of this luxuriant growth, the land was as destitute of vegetation as a brick pavement.
The effect of guano upon strawberries, Col. D. found to excel anything else ever tried.
A neighbor of Col. Downing had a fine show for a wheat crop on exceedingly poor land from the application of only 90 lbs. Peruvian Guano to the acre.
Capt Wm. Harding, Northumberland, C. H., assured us he made 27 bushels per acre upon only tolerably fair land, by the use of 200 lbs. Peruvian guano, plowed in and followed by clover, worth more than the guano cost.
Col. Richard A. Claybrook, in the same neighborhood, made 15 bushels--the land along side almost as bare as the surface of the guano islands.
We might mention a dozen others in the same place, in fact in most of the places mentioned, whose testimony would be as strong as those we have named.
Col. Edward Tayloe of King George Co., having been very successful in the use of guano, induced his neighbor, Wm. Roy Mason, Esq. to test its powers by the most severe experiment we have ever known it subjected to. He selected a point of a hill, from which every particle of soil had been washed away, until nothing in the world would grow there. It would not produce, said he, a peck of wheat to the acre, but with a dressing of 300 lbs. African guano, it gave me thirteen bushels, and now while that is covered with clover, other, so called, rich parts of the field are almost bare. A field which had never produced for years, over four bushels of wheat to the acre, was dressed with 250 lbs. of guano and one bushel of plaster at a cost of $7 to the acre, which gave thirteen bushels of a quality greatly improved, and a very large growth of straw, which he esteems highly as a top dressing for the clover, which far exceeded upon the guanoed land that which was highly manured. The success of Mr. Mason was so flattering, he immediately purchased six tons for the next experiment.
If all the faithless would pursue the course indicated in the following experiment with guano, by Mr. Richard Rouzee of Essex Co. Va., they would probably be as well convinced as he, that the greatest "humbugging" about guano, is in neglecting to profit by its use. He says:--"I must confess that I have been skeptical in relation to the various accounts of the fertilizing properties of guano, especially in these times of humbuggery, and therefore determined to subject it to the most rigid test." In view of this, on the 3d of October last, I selected two acres of land by actual measurement, proverbially poor, never having yielded in a course of ten years cultivation more than three bushels per acre, and in consequence, was called by way of derision, "Old Kentuck." To the two acres 560 lbs. of guano were applied in the most injudicious manner by strewing it on the top of the corn bed--the consequence was, when the wheat was ploughed in, and came up, a