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.