Part 6 (1/2)
That which contains a large proportion of phosphates, in combination with ammonia, nitrogen and alkaline salts, apparently in the exact proportion required by nature, such as a.n.a.lysis and experience proves is the case with Peruvian guano, will be sought after by every farmer who reads the evidence of its value which we have given in these pages.
It is idle to talk of bones to restore the waste of phosphates in the soil that is being constantly carried away in gra.s.s and grain, beef, pork, mutton, milk and cheese, much of which pa.s.ses into the sea from the sewers of cities, to be there retained in that great reservoir for the future use of men. It is from that we are now drawing our present supplies. Happily for mankind in all civilized countries, the discovery of guano has, in a providential manner, met the very wants of the times, in reference to the reinvigoration of certain kinds of soil, since this manure furnishes the elements most needed to supply the waste arising from cultivation, and to develop vegetation.
The impossibility of procuring bones enough to supply the wants of the comparative few now engaged in using guano, may be readily learned by any farmer who uses ten tons of guano per annum, if he will undertake to ”pick up bones” enough to furnish him the same amount of phosphates contained in that quant.i.ty of guano. Then if all who are now using it, would drop guano and take to bones, it would soon be found to be hard picking. Save all the bones and apply them to the soil, is a standing text with us; upon the same soil use all the guano your can procure and you will not need to pick bones--you will grow bones to pick. It may be very patriotic to talk about expending the money at home, for bones, instead of sending it to Peru, for guano; but that talk is all for Buncombe, there is not a particle of sound reason in it. If all the bones in the United States could be saved and applied to the land again, we should still fall short of a supply, and be obliged to do as England did before the introduction of guano; go about and ransack grave yards of great battlefields, for more bones. With all the guano imported, or that will be imported, and all the bones that will be saved, there will still be room for more phosphates in the millions of acres of hungry soil in America. What would be the effect if a few such farms as Willoughby Newton's, and Col. Carter's, who each use 30 to 40 tons per annum of guano, should come all at once into the bone market for their supplies. In our opinion there would be such a rattling among the dry bones, we should hear no more about subst.i.tuting them for guano. The fact is an incontrovertible one, that nothing on earth nor under the earth, or in the sea, has ever been discovered, which can be used as a subst.i.tute for guano. Its small bulk is alone sufficient to commend it to favor.
The Royal Agricultural Society of England offers a prize of 1,000 and the gold medal of the society, for the discovery of a manure with equal fertilizing properties to the guano, of which an unlimited supply can be furnished in England, at 5 per ton.
”_a.n.a.logy between Bones and Guano._--There is a striking a.n.a.logy in composition between bones and guano, which is, for other reasons interesting to the practical man.
The following table exhibits the composition of bones compared with guano, supposing both in the dry state. Bones, as they are applied to to the land contain about 18 per cent. of water. Ichaboe guano from 20 to 25 per cent.
_Bones._ _Guano._
Organic animal matter, 33 56 Phosphates of lime and magnesia, 59 26 Carbonate of lime, 4 6 Salts of soda, 4 10 Salts of potash, trace trace Silicious matter 0 2 ---- ---- 100 100”
And these substances are found in guano already in a pulverulent state, while bones have to be reduced by mechanical or chemical means to the same condition before they are of any use as manure. Do not, we again repeat most emphatically, do not waste a bone; dissolve all you can get in sulphuric acid and mix with guano--save and make all the manure possible, both by the stable, compost heap and green crops, and then you will have money to buy guano, by which you can save the immense labor of hauling to distant fields, and still have the satisfaction of seeing them as fertile as those highly manured near home.
When the farmer raises crops for sale, and removes his grain and gra.s.ses from the land, he sells a portion of his soil; and if he does not renew in some way the saline matters taken away in his crops, he invariably impoverishes his farm. This work of exhaustion is now going on to an alarming extent, and the prolific wheat lands are to be searched for farther and farther westward as the operation proceeds.
Every one knows the superiority of wheat grown on newly cultivated lands, and most farmers are aware of the fact that soils become exhausted of something, they know not what, but of something essential to the most favorable production of grain. This something is found in guano, and by it the original fertility of land can be more easily, more certainly and cheaply restored than by any other means as yet discovered.
Professor Mapes in one of his letters of advice says; ”As no farm, under ordinary usage, will supply as much manure as may be used upon it with profit, I am glad you intend to use guano, as it is an admirable manure, replete with many requirements of plants. The ammonia of the guano is in the form of a carbonate, and therefore so volatile as to escape from the soil into the atmosphere before plants can use it.
”You will readily perceive, therefore, that the sulphuric and phosphoric acids require amendments, and the ammonia should be changed from a carbonate to a sulphate of ammonia, which is not volatile. All this may be readily done by dissolving bone dust in dilute sulphuric acid, mixing it with the guano, and then with a sufficient amount of charcoal dust to render the ma.s.s dry and pulverulent. The more charcoal dust the better, as it absorbs and retains ammonia, and after it is in the soil, will continue to perform similar offices for many years, only yielding up ammonia as required by plants, and receiving new portions from rains, dews, &c.”
If used as a top dressing, this change from a carbonate to a sulphate may be necessary; but not so if well mixed with the soil, particularly one in which clay predominates. In such a soil it is not even necessary to adhere to the direction to plow the guano deeply under. If it is but slightly harrowed in, the nature of the clay is such it will prevent the escape of the ammonia. If you require phosphates, more than ammonia, add the superphosphate of lime; but in no case omit the guano.
_Use of Salt with Guano._--Common salt at the rate of a bushel to 100 lbs. of guano, well mixed, may be used to good advantage either as a top dressing, or when plowed in. The effect of the muriatic acid of the salt upon the guano will be, as both are dissolved in the earth, or by dews and rains, to form muriate of ammonia, which is not volatile; consequently the salt prevents loss by exhaustion, which is sure to take place when the guano is used as a top dressing, unless prevented by something to act as a fixer of the ammonia.
The wisdom of this law of nature in making the most precious saline manure a fixed and difficultly soluble salt, is at once obvious; for it is thus kept always ready in the soil for the plants to act upon according to their need. If we cut plants down before the seeds form, we have all the phosphates the plants contain diffused throughout them, and if we allow the seed to ripen, the phosphates, as before observed, will be found mostly in the seed. We find them in the state of phosphate of potash, phosphate of soda, phosphate of magnesia, and phosphate of lime, and probably, also, phosphate of ammonia. Now all these salts are essential to the growth and sustenance of animals, and without them grain would cease to be sufficient.
The necessity of restoring inorganic substances to the soil, may be better understood by examining the following table:
Mr. Prixdeaux states that the following quant.i.ties (of inorganic matters) are removed from an acre of soil by a crop of wheat, of 25 bushels of grain, and 3000 lbs. of straw--
_By the grain._ _By the straw._ _Total._ lbs. lbs. lbs.
Potash, 7.15 22.44 29.59 Soda, 2.73 0.29 3.02 Magnesia, 3.63 6.99 10.62 Phosphoric acid, 15.02 5.54 20.56 Sulphuric acid, 0.07 10.49 10.56 Chlorine 0.00 1.98 1.98 ---- ---- ---- 28.60 47.73
Gross weight to be returned to an acre, 76.33
Professor Johnson says--”Soils are barren either from the presence of a noxious principle or the absence of a necessary element. It is therefore highly important to be able to distinguish between the two cases.
”The art of culture is almost entirely a chemical art. Its processes are explained on chemical princ.i.p.als in part, but partly on mechanical and natural ones.
”All forms of matter may be divided into one of the two great groups--organic or inorganic matter.”
In Peruvian guano, both these substances exist in a better and cheaper form than can be obtained from any other source.
The editor of the Genesee farmer, whose scientific information none can dispute, strongly corroborates this opinion. In a late number he says--If we admit that phosphate of lime is a necessary ingredient in a special manure for wheat--Peruvian guano would at present be much the cheapest source of it; for, in addition to the 16 per cent. of ammonia, it contains 20 per cent. of phosphate of lime in first-rate condition for a.s.similation by the plant, as well as other fertilizing ingredients of minor importance.