Guano: A Treatise of Practical Information for FarmersRobinson, Solon
Science
Guano: A Treatise of Practical Information for Farmers
Robinson, Solon
Guano
_On Cabbages._--Field culture. After the ground is well prepared, lay it
off in checks three to four feet square. With a spade, throw out a deep
spit at each check and put in a spoonful of guano, or at the rate of 400
lbs. per acre, and cover with soil. Set the plants immediately and water
if possible. After the first hoeing, throw a handful of ashes on each
plant.
_For Carrots, Beets and Parsnips_, plow in 500 lbs. per acre, twelve to
eighteen inches deep. Top dress with ashes, salt, and fine manure in
compost, to assist the young plants; the long roots will find the guano
and it will produce such a crop as you never saw before.
_On Hops._--Make a mixture of three cwt. of guano, one of salt, one and
a half of saltpetre, and one of gypsum, for each acre; sow broadcast and
plow in about four inches deep, and you will find your manure well paid
for, and no exhaustion of the soil, as is usually the case wherever this
crop is cultivated, as it is a very gross feeder, and requires very rich
land or great deal of manure; for which reason it is not as much
cultivated as it will be as soon as the virtues of the above application
become fully known.
_For Tobacco_, guano has been found to possess superior qualities,
particularly in obviating the difficulty heretofore experienced in
getting plants sufficiently early. We have the testimony of several
witnesses to prove that burning a seed bed is quite unnecessary, if
guano at the rate of 400 to 600 lbs. to the acre be mixed with an equal
amount of ashes, and plaster and well raked in previous to sowing. Of
the effect upon the crop, we give the testimony of a Virginia planter.
"In the spring of 1850, I applied 200 lbs. to the acre, on eight acres
of land, which had been manured three years before for tobacco, and the
same quantity, on three acres which had never been manured, and was very
poor. On the last I also turned in some half rotted straw, raked up in
the barn yard, after all the farm yard manure had been hauled out.
Between these two pieces of land, 19 acres were heavily manured. The
whole 30 acres had been well broken with four horses, early in the
winter. The last year was the worst I have ever known for tobacco.
Nevertheless, the first eight acres produced a very fine crop--the last
three acres brought much better tobacco than the adjoining manured land,
I should say not less than 600 lbs. to the acre."
_Wheat on Guanoed Tobacco Land._--This field was sown with wheat, and
the writer says--"I measured from these 30 acres next year upwards of
600 bushels of wheat of very fine quality; both pieces of guanoed land
being _above_ the average of the whole lot. Adjoining the _three_ acres
is an equal quantity of land of the same quality, which did not yield
five bushels to the acre."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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