3 1/4 cwt. to the acre (costing 23s. 6d.), and a fortnight
after I had it sowed with 2 cwt. of guano to the acre.
When the warm weather came, these manurings seemed
to help it wonderfully, and it was, as I have before
stated, a very promising crop; but the cold, ungenial
weather we had through a great part of the summer,
and the continued rain we had whilst the wheat was
in flower, destroyed all the former promise: and
the manuring with guano, so far from being beneficial,
was very injurious—so much so, that I believe
every shilling’s-worth of it applied to my wheat
this year, made the crop a shilling worse than if nothing
had been applied; and all ammoniacal manures had the
same effect. It may be asked how I know it was
the guano, and not the chemical manure. In answer
to this inquiry, if made, I may observe, that I supplied
two of my neighbours with the chemical manure, and
they applied it without guano on very poor land, and
they both assert they had never such good crops of
wheat before; but everywhere in this neighbourhood,
the only good samples of wheat that I saw or heard
of were grown on exhausted soil. This appears
to me to be a strong proof that chemistry has a great
deal to learn before it can adapt its measures to
all varieties of seasons, particularly as it cannot
know beforehand how the season may turn out. If
further proof be required of the injurious effect upon
grain crops of ammoniacal manures in general, and
of guano in particular, I may mention that in another
field of wheat, sowed on the 21st December, and which
did not come up until the frost broke, in March (the
previous crop having been Swedes), the blade was so
yellow and the plant altogether so small and sickly
in appearance, that I had it manured with a water-cart
from a cesspool in April. This appeared to produce
a wonderful improvement immediately, as the plant
assumed a deep green and grew very fast, but when it
ought to have shot, the heads seemed to stick in the
sockets, the blade and straw became mildewed and made
no progress in ripening. It was not fit to cut
for three weeks after the experimental field, although
it was an early white wheat, and the result was a
miserable crop—far worse than the experimental
field. The instance of injury from the use of
guano, I had from a neighbour, who told me he had
sowed a patch of oats with it, and that they never
ripened at all, and that he was compelled to cut them
green as fodder for his cattle. I had a striking
proof this season of the much lower temperature required
by oats than wheat, when strongly stimulated by manuring.
I had gathered an ear of wheat and a panicle of oats
the previous season, which seemed to me to be superior
varieties; and that they might have every chance, I
dibbled them alongside each other in my garden, and
determined to manure them with every kind of manure
I could procure, as I had an idea that it was not
easy to over-manure grain crops, if all the elements
entering into the composition of the plant were applied


