GUANO AS A MANURE.

Bruce Herald, Volume III, Issue 125, 30 August 1866, Page 5

GUANO AS A MANURE.

The following letter has been handed to us for publication, and we have much pleasure in giving- it a place in our columns. Mount Stuart, 9, August, 1865. Messrs Doug-las, Alderson and Co., Dunedin. Dear Sirs, — In reply to your enquiries regarding" the guano I purchased of } 7 ou, I have great pleasure in informing you, that its effects came quite up to my expectations. I tried it upon potatoes at the ratio of two cwts. per acre, and I believe every cwt. increased the produce a ton. I also tried it at the rate of one cwt. an acre on a field I was sowing down with grass, without a crop with a very marked result. Tlie growth of the grass was quite extraordinary, and kept a great amount of stock ; and although I hud only sown a bushel of rye-^rass seed to the acre, it came up too thick, showing that the extra bushel of seed which it is usual to sow in this country, might advantageously be dispensed with, and the price expended upon guano. As I have generally taken only one grain crop, and the land has been rich enough, I have not found it necessary to top dress with gnano, but this year I intend applying it where I am taking a second crop, as I have no doubt it pays well wherj the land requires it, as the crop is earlier and better, and the land is left much freer from weeds. This is well established in the old country, as it is not uncommon in the best cultivated districts for farmers to expend a sum upon guano equal to their rents, and the necessity for a full crop applies quite as much to Utago, where the additional cost of labor amounts to a fair rent for the land, so that the laborer pockets the rent ; and the farmer, if he is to compete with other countries where labour is cheaper, must base his profits on a greater production from the soil, which can only be brought about by the liberal use of artificial manures, growing green crops, and thG folding of sheep upon the turnips, and keeping cattle in yards with a supply of turnips or forage to convert the straw into manure. I hold it as a duty for ever} r one to begin now and test for himself the economical effects of guano and other manures, and I believe it will be found from the small expense of application, and the great results, that guano and dissolved bones will be cheapest, costing less than the pi*ic*e of carting and spreading, the less concentrated and more bulky manures taken from the stockyard and straw heap, when labor is at the present high rate. I am, Gentlemen, Your's truly, (Signed) THOS. MURRAY.