p dressing; a method universally acknowledged to be the
most unfavorable to the development of the full value of the
application.

The editor of the Farmer in answer to an inquiry whether a combination
of charcoal, plaster, and guano would make a profitable _top dressing_
in spring for wheat, says, "yes"--but thinks if it had been plowed in
with the seed in the fall, the result would have been much better.
However, says he, "we entertain not the slightest doubt, that, if his
wheat field be top dressed with the mixture next spring, it will greatly
increase the yield of his wheat crop, unless the season should prove a
very dry one, as the charcoal, and plaster, will each tend to prevent
the escape of the ammoniacal gases of the guano, and as it were, offer
them up as food to the wheat plants.

"In April 1845, I applied 350 lbs. of guano to an acre of growing wheat,
the land being entirely unimproved and very poor. Of course it was
applied as a top-dressing, _mixed, however, with plaster_. The wheat was
doubled in quantity at least; fine clover succeeded it; and in two
crops, one of corn, and the other of small grain, last year and the
present, the effects are still apparent."

If our correspondent would _mix_, in the proportion of 200 lbs. of
_guano_, one bushel of _charcoal_, and half a bushel of plaster per
acre, and sow the mixture on his wheat field next spring, after the
frost is entirely out of the ground, then seed each acre with clover
seed, and roll his land, we have no doubt that his wheat crop would be
increased five or six bushels to the acre, perhaps more, and that he
would have a good stand of clover plants, and a luxuriant crop of the
latter next year.

"Our opinion is, that _guanoed_ land should always be sowed to clover, or
clover and orchard grass."

In this, particularly the opinion of the last paragraph, we fully
concur--to obtain the full value of guano it must either be mixed with
plaster or charcoal, or what is better, plowed in and thoroughly
incorporated with the soil, and the land always sown with clover, peas
or some other plant of equal value for green manure. It is true Col.
Carter has been successful with wheat after wheat; while many continue
successful, by carefully retaining all the straw; the guano being
sufficient to keep up the everlasting ability of the soil to produce an
annual crop of grain.

THE FIVE FIELD SYSTEM AND GUANO.

We look upon this as the most preferable of all