cause it has been stoutly asserted, that
however well guano might answer at the South, it was of no use in the
hard soil and cold climate of New England. This is a fallacy which will
soon be cured by knowledge, and self-interest is a very strong prompter
towards the acquisition of the knowledge, that guano is the best,
cheapest, most suitable, convenient and productive manure ever used by a
New England farmer, and just as suitable for that climate and soil as it
is for Virginia. We assert, without fear of successful contradiction,
that there is not a farm--not a field--covered with five-finger vines
and mullens, in the State of Massachusetts, which may not be made to
produce as profitable crops, by the use of guano, as any Connecticut
river farm. Farmers are about the hardest class of men in the world to
learn new doctrines; or that science has anything to do with the
business of this life, and what all other life in a civilized country is
dependent upon. Yet science teaches, by unerring truths, that the plants
the farmer cultivates, are composed of carbon, obtained by plants
chiefly from the soil and atmosphere; oxygen and hydrogen, obtained by
plants chiefly from water, carbonic acid, &c.; nitrogen obtained by
plants chiefly from manure, and also from rain and snow; silicium, in
combination with oxygen, called _silicia_ or sand; lime in combination
with phosphoric and other acids; potash and soda in combination with
acids; magnesia, in combination with acids, and various oxides of
metals, the presence of which, however, is not very important, as they
exist in an exceedingly small quantity. And that guano is composed of
ammonia (formed of nitrogen and hydrogen,) combined with carbonic,
oxalic, phosphoric, and other acids; lime, combined with phosphoric
oxalic, and other acids; potash and soda, combined with muriatic and
sulphuric acids; magnesia, combined with phosphoric and other acids;
animal organic matter, containing carbon, and also nitrogen.

Now, is it not enough to prove that all the ingredients, with the
exception of the metallic oxides, exist in guano, which are required by
the plants grown for the sustenance of man.

Putting guano into the soil, therefore, as a manure, is clearly
restoring to the earth those substances which plants abstract from it,
and which are absolutely necessary for their growth.

The questions, then, which the farmer should now ask are, "which is best
for me to buy, guano or coarse m