different trials; and I underwent no small share of ridicule from
my neighbors, while preparing it for wheat. Remarks like the
following were of daily occurrence--"Ah! Seaman you will fail this
time." "You have not got your old highly manured fields to exhaust
this time by your stimulating stuff!" "We shall now see whether
guano is good for anything--this will be a fair test, because the
land will not produce anything without it, &c." "You may get about
12 bushels of wheat per acre; we shall see." All agreed however,
that if wheat did grow, guano should have the credit for it.

Well, we prepared the ground in about the usual manner, except
perhaps plowing a little deeper than in former years. A small
quantity of manure was plowed under, and a top dressing of ground
bones given and sowed about the last of September--2 acres with
Mediterranean and 4 acres with the red flint wheat--but owing to a
scarcity of the article, could only get about 420 lbs. of guano,
which was sown across the field upon not quite 3 acres, covering
some of each kind of wheat; it was sown upon the furrow, and
harrowed in with the wheat as usual. In 1851, April 11th, top
dressed the whole field with guano, at about 200 lbs. per acre;
harvested about the 8th July. The 2 acres of Mediterranean yielded
61 bushels; flint wheat straw very large, and thick upon the
ground, but grain much injured by the weevil; yielding an average
of 23 bushels per acre. I may remark, that where the guano was
applied in the autumn, the crop was quite one third greater than
where it only received the spring dressing. The last year I managed
much in the same way, except that I fell short of manure, and
depended entirely upon guano and bone upon a part of the field,
from which part, though I have not yet threshed it, I think I shall
get 18 to 20 bushels. The rest of the field was very large and
considered the best between this place and Brooklyn, on a road of
25 miles in length.

My _good luck_(1) at wheat growing is now a conceded point. Now for
other crops--for corn I have not been very successful; generally
mixing some guano with earth in the hill at the time of planting
and getting but few plants to stand; these, however, generally have
been heavily eared. By mixing previously with charcoal dust I