Guano

A dog vanishes in one wheat field; in the neighboring field, an egg would have been visible through the sparse growth. Solon Robinson says the difference was a dressing of Peruvian guano.

Writing in the mid-19th century for American farmers, Robinson makes a case for a fertilizer carried in small loads to fields too poor or remote for ordinary manure. His examples come from Virginia’s worn-out forest lands, where farmers report turning barren ground into wheat and clover fields—and where one application could mean the difference between three bushels of wheat an acre and fifteen or twenty. But how should guano be used, and can its first astonishing harvests lead to lasting improvement in the soil? Robinson weighs experiments, costs and practical methods to find out.

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