Chapter 2

Before leaving Mr. Newton, we will place on record one expression highly creditable to him, and convincing in its palpable truth of the value put upon this fertilizer, by a gentlemen of sound judgment and candor of speech, equal to any other within the circle of our acquaintance.

"I look upon the introduction of guano and the success attending its application to our barren lands, in the light of a special interposition of Divine Providence, to save the northern neck of Virginia from reverting entirely into its former state of wilderness and utter desolation. Until the discovery of guano--more valuable to us than the mines of California--I looked upon the possibility of renovating our soil, of ever bringing it up to a point capable of producing remunerating crops as utterly hopeless. Our up-lands were all worn out, and our bottom lands fast failing, and if it had not been for guano, to revive our last hope, a few years more and the whole country must have been deserted by all who desired to increase their own wealth, or advance the cause of civilization by a profitable cultivation of the earth."

We are satisfied that the above opinion will be considered of more value--more conclusive in favor of guano, by all who are acquainted with the character of Willoughby Newton, than all else contained in the pages of this pamphlet.

OTHER WITNESSES IN VIRGINIA IN FAVOR OF GUANO.

As our principal object is to convince the skeptical, or induce unbelievers in its efficacy and value, to try experiments themselves by which they will be convinced and enriched, we offer the names of a few more gentlemen of high standing, who have been very fortunate in the use of this essential element of successful cultivation in Virginia, as witnesses, whose testimony ought to be, and will be, where they are known entirely conclusive.

_Col. Robert W. Carter, of Sabine Hall_, on the Rappahanock, whose land is principally of that kind of clayey loam common upon that river, once rich but badly worn by cultivation, is so well satisfied that it is profitable to make rich lands still more rich, he buys annually 30 or 40 tons of the best in market. He says he cannot afford to sow wheat without guano--it is foolish and unprofitable. He sows it broad cast, 200 lbs. to the acre, with no other preparation than breaking the lumps; plows it in; sows wheat and harrows that; in some cases has sown clover, and in others, followed wheat after wheat with increasing productiveness every year; clearly proving the effect of one application, to be beneficial to the succeeding crop. Without guano, or very high manuring, wheat will deteriorate year after year, if sown upon the same soil, until the product would not pay for the labor of sowing and harvesting.

Upon one upland field, which without manure would not pay for cultivation, he sowed one bushel of wheat and 200 lbs. Peruvian guano and made fifteen bushels. Plowed down the stubble with same application, and when we saw the crop, should have been willing to insure it at twenty-five bushels. Col. C. has nearly 2,000 acres in cultivation, which within his recollection was cultivated entirely with hoes--his grandfather would not use a plow--was as much set against that great land improver as some modern, but no more wise farmers, are against guano. Col. C. uses the best of plows; sows 200 lbs. guano to the acre and plows it in six 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 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 small girth was only seen on the top and a space between each row at least one third of its width; in this condition it remained until about the middle of November, when it had so sensibly disappeared, that it attracted the attention of one of my neighbors, who remarked to me, that at least one half of it had been destroyed, in which opinion I concurred; in examining that which remained, we were of opinion that three-fourths of it had from three to ten flies in the maggot state on each stalk; in this state of things I surrendered all hope of any tolerable return, more especially as the rust made its appearance in it a short time before it ripened.--Now for the result--

The 2 acres of land yielded me 32 1/4 bushels of wheat at $1 per bushel, $32 25 Deduct for average yield of the above, 2 acres, 6 bushels at $1 per bushel, $6 00 Deduct for Cost of 560 lbs. Guano, $12 70 ------- $18 70 ------- $13 55 Add for additional straw, 50 ------- Clear profit, $14.05

Here is a clear profit of $14 upon $12.70 invested, and acknowledged to be applied in the most injudicious manner. It is easy to judge what would have been the profit under different circumstances. In the vicinity of this city where straw sells for $5 per hundred little bundles, instead of a credit of 50 cents it would have been at least half the cost of the guano.

GUANO IN NORTH CAROLINA.

_Henry K. Burgwyn's first trial with guano. Its effect on grass sown with wheat._--The name and farm of this gentleman is so widely known as a successful renovator of miserably poor worn out fields, that we are delighted to have it in our power to have his testimony to our impregnable array of witnesses in favor of the most valuable substance for the improvement of such land, ever given by an overruling power for the benefit of those who ought to be exceedingly thankful for so good a gift. But hear what this writer has to say upon this interesting subject.

"Having about 150 acres of my wheat, this year sown upon last year's corn ground, and the land being rather light and not too rich, I feared lest I should fail with my grass sown on _this_ wheat, because of the two successive cereal crops; I therefore bought guano, mixed it with its bulk of plaster, then added fine charcoal, the same, and to this mixture double the whole bulk of deposit of the Roanoke river, a rich alluvial earth, and sowed the whole broadcast in February and March, and harrowed it in, on the top of the wheat I sowed at the rate of 200 lbs. of guano to the acre; the value of which, no doubt, was doubled by the mixture with the absorbents of the ammonia, which is so exceedingly volatile even when left for a few hours, is easily dissipated by the March winds. On this land, I had sown in October previous, clover, timothy, Kentucky blue grass, and Italian ray grass. My harvest has now been over, three weeks, and I have never had a finer stand of all these, even on our rich bottoms. The ray grass matured its seed, rather sooner than the wheat was two-thirds as tall, and where _very thickly sown_, materially injured the product of the wheat, _I have reaped an increased product from my wheat, amply sufficient to repay my outlay for the guano, plaster, &c., and have my grass as my profit on the investment_; this in turn will shade and improve my land, fatten my stock, increase my crops, and cheer my eye with 'grassy slopes,' in place of 'galled hill sides;' this is profit sufficient for the most greedy if turned to a proper account;--be it remembered, too, this was a light and rather poor soil, but based on a good clay subsoil."

To this we beg leave to add from our own knowledge of this land, which is situated on the Roanoke river 6 or 7 miles below Halifax, that it was before being improved by Mr. Burgwyn, about as unpromising a tract as can be found upon all the "cottoned to death," poor old fields of that sadly abused State. In the condition it was when we first saw it, while undergoing the operation of putting a four horse plow through the broom straw and old field pines, notwithstanding our strong faith in the ability of such men as the Messrs. Burgwyns to redeem such land from its condition of utter and apparently hopeless barrenness, we must own, that if Mr. B. had made the assertion while we were riding over this very tract, that within two years he would reap a remunerating crop of wheat from the barren waste, and coat the ground with a carpet of luxuriant grass, we should have told him the day of miracles had passed away. But we had not then seen as much as we have since of the miraculous power of Peruvian guano.

We might continue to cite hundreds of similar cases but propose to pass over into Maryland, and after showing its application there has produced equally beneficial results, travel northward, calling here and there a witness as we proceed. Among others, we may call to the stand in Maryland, will be the editor of the American Farmer, whose testimony we consider almost invaluable, having devoted much attention to the subject, and to whom, and his able correspondents, we desire to award full credit, in this general manner, to save repetition, for much of the information we shall give the readers of several of the succeeding pages. The testimony of witnesses of such high standing, cannot be too highly estimated by those who are anxious to learn how to renovate their worn out farms, or make the rich ones richer.

EXPERIMENTS IN MARYLAND.

_Effects of guano upon the crop to which it is applied._--Edward Stabler, in the American Farmer, thus speaks of an experiment he made in 1845, soon after the introduction of guano to any extent into this country.

"In a field of some 10 acres, one acre was selected near the middle, and extending through the field, so as to embrace any difference of soil, should there be any. On this acre 200 lbs. of Peruvian guano, at a cost of about $5 was sown with the wheat. Adjoining the guano on one side, was manure from the barn yard, at the rate of 25 cart loads to the acre; and on the opposite side (separated by an open drain the whole distance;) ground bones were applied on the balance of the field, at a cost of $6 to the acre; the field equally limed two years preceding. There was no material difference in the time or manner of seeding; except that the manure was lightly cross-ploughed in, and the guano and bones harrowed in with the wheat.

"The yield on the guanoed acre was 35 bushels; the adjoining acre with bone, as near as could be estimated by dozens, and compared with the guano, was about 27 bushels; and the manured, about 24 bushels. The season was unusually dry; and the manured portion suffered more from this cause than either of the others; the land being considerably more elevated, and a south exposure."

In our opinion Mr. S. is in error in regard to the manured land suffering most from drouth. In our experience we have always found the best effects from Guano, in wet seasons, or upon irrigated land. He says also, "This is one of the most active of all manures; and although he thinks the effect evanescent, it might aid materially in renovating worn out lands." Since that time a great many other Maryland farmers have, undoubtedly come to the same conclusion, for notwithstanding the price, which he thinks too high to justify its extensive use, has not been materially reduced, there is more guano sold in Baltimore than any, or perhaps all the ports in the United States; and the benefits derived from its use upon the worn out lands of Maryland, have been of the most satisfactory character.

In speaking of the after crop of grass upon the land above mentioned, he says:

"The field has since been mowed three times; the first crop of grass was evidently in favor of the boned part; the second, and third, were fully two to one over the guano, and also yielding much heavier crops of clover seed. On a part of one land, 18 bushels to the acre of the finest of the bone were used; on this, the wheat was as heavy as on the guanoed, and the grass generally lodges before harvest, as it also does on much of the adjoining land with 12 bushels of bone."

This is all right; it should never be mixed with lime, and it should be plowed in. In his experiments, the lime in the soil had the effect to disengage the ammonia, and not being sufficiently buried or mixed up with the earth to prevent its escape during a very dry season, much of its value went afloat in the atmosphere. If he had given a bushel of plaster as a top dressing, there is no doubt the effect upon the grass crop would have been entirely different. The action of guano is very variable upon different soils, as well as upon the same kinds of soil in different seasons, or from the different manner of applying it; but there is one thing in its favor, it seldom fails to pay for itself, as Mr. Newton remarks, in the first crop; and if properly applied, that is, plowed in with wheat, upon poor, sandy, "worn out land," and followed by clover, and that dressed with plaster, it will pay far better in the succeeding years than the first. This has been fully proved in a hundred cases, since Mr. Stabler tried his experiments; for two years after, in writing upon the same subject, he says "Harrowing in the guano with the wheat will generally produce a better crop; but its fertilizing properties are more evanescent. I prefer plowing it in for all field crops; and when attainable, would always use it in conjunction with ground bones, for the benefit of succeeding grass crops. This is pre-supposing that you determine to improve more land than the resources of the farm will accomplish, and are willing to do it by the aid of foreign manures; and being 'far removed from lime.' If the object is to realize the most in a single crop, and to obtain the quickest return for the outlay, use the guano alone, and harrow it in with the wheat; but the land, according to my experience, will derive but little benefit from the application, unless the amount is large. By plowing it in, particularly if mixed with one third its bulk of plaster, the effect is decidedly more durable; nor is it then necessary that the seeding should so immediately follow its application. If, however, the object is to improve the land at the same time; and surely it should be a primary object with every tiller of the soil--and lime, from your location, or the price, is unattainable, I would advise about half the amount determined on, to be expended for ground bones. This may be harrowed in with the wheat."