GUANO PRODUCERS.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 23 July 1925, Page 7

GUANO PRODUCERS.

BIRD ISLAND OF PERU.”

AN ODD BUSINESS

COLLECTING A FAMOUS FERTILISER.

Within the zone of that chilly and mysterious ocean river, the Humboldt Current, between a tropical continent and the heated surface waters of the South Pacific, are the centres oi one of the strangest oi the world’s industries, the collecting grounds for.the highly nitrogenous Peruvian guano, writes E.H.G. in the Illustrated London News. There the alchemy of the bird’s intestinal-tract unites the components of its fishy food into “a compound more easily absorbed by plants from the soil to which it is applied than any fertiliser synthetically composed,’ a production so valuable that its preservation and exportation are a national affair watched over by an official Department. It is an inheritance, this odd bu»fness. The ancient Peruvians, broadening their cultivated fields over dry wastes, were compelled to deveJop “a science- of agricultural engineering, marked by extensive irrigation work# with canals and ditches that followed the contours of hillsides, tier after tier, or pierced sharp ridges with remarkable tunnels.” The labour was immense, but there w*» reward. Nature wa e not niggardly altogether. The natives ‘‘found upon the coast and inlands a unique compensation for their difficulties. The same conditions which made the lands naturally arid had also conserved to them th e best of agricultural aids in Peruvian guano. They took fertiliser from, the islands to enrich the lands, even in the high altitudes . . . two or three miles above sea-level.” This, according to the evidence of kitchen-middens, as far back as the early days of Christianity.

Later days were to bring less appreciation. The Spanish. Conquest reduced the tra.de to insignificance, and “up to about 1840 - - • the beds remained virtually undiscovered to the foreign world. Existing there ill practically undiminished quantity, like deposits represented the accumulation of thousands of years, lying in thick beds, exposed or deeply buried, and waiting only to be shovelled up and loaded into ships for conveyance to the markets of the world.

‘‘After guano waa actually introduced to the foreign markets about 1843, there liegan an era of extraction on a scale hitherto unknown ... It is stated that more than 10,(100,000 tons were extracted between 1851 and 1872 from one small group of islands, representing an average annual exportation of the value <xf twenty or thirty millions of dollars. A single island, it is said, was lowered more than a hundred' feet by the removal of its thick crown of guano.” Those are the words of Dr. Ooker, quoted by Dr. Robert Cushman Murphy in hi# recent book, “Bird. Islands of Peru.” With, such methods, the Pern of the end of the nineteenth century saw “her guano deposits reduced, to •uoh a point that the country’s agriculture was threatened, besides which control of the remainiiag supply was largo. Iv in the hands of foreign creditors.” Then ca-me reawakened energy and the traffic was rehabilitated. An exploitation gave way to an industry. Each of the numerous islands is a bird sanctuary, Guardians, with duties scarcely less exacting than those of lightlionsekeepers. are resident on every group. “The old method of «xtracting guano without regard to the presence or condition of the birds lias, of course, been abolished. The -islands, under the new rule, are worked according to a system oSr rotation which leave* ample and congenial breeding grounds always available. Courting or nesting birds are sheilded with particuar care. Moreover, after removal of the goano, an island is promptly vacated, and is thereafter given over to the complete possession of the birds for a period of approximately thirty months, at, the expiration of which the date for a renewal of digging operations is determined only after thorough reconnaissance.” Aw a result : “Ten years ago the ***- nnal output was less than twenty-five thousand tons, while to-day it is about ninety thousand tons, of which seventy thousand are used in Peru, an c ] the remainder exported.”