The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1865-06-27 00:00:00

NATURAL HISTORY OF GUANOS.—No. 11.
[(AMINO= TROY AGRICULTURAL GAZSOIR

(The following is a pessage from ore of a short course of
lectures lately delivered by Mr. Wallace Fyfe, before
the Royal Agricultural College.]
For 2000 years the Peruvians have known
and applied this guano, of which our agricultural
experience extends over 20, and perhaps it may
not be altogether futile to cast a glance at the
history of ita utilisation in its own country.
Accent is the earliest historian who notices the method
of manuiing the land adopted in Peru, at the arrival of
the Spaniard.. He nntices that the ridges amongst the
cliffs and hills of the islands contigu ins to the coast are
.o white that one would imagine they were topped with
snow. This covering he describes as an uninterrupted
heap, often some yards deep, of the excrement of sea
fowl ; and vessels go solely for the purpose of loading
this dung, so great being its efficacy that the land
manured with it produces • much larger crop of grain
and also an increased quantity of fruit. Ills called
guano, and Lunagneno in the Peruvian valleys takes
It. name from its being there more generally used
(Historia Natural y Moral de las Indies iv. o. 37.)
Garcilasso de la Vega (Commentaries, b. 5, iii,) says
that "On the sea coast, from the other side* Arequipa
as far as T'arapaca, a distance equal to 200 leagues, the
Inhabitants use no other manure than the dung of
marine birds, large and small, which abound on the
whole Peruvian coast, moving about in immense flocks."
In the time of the Incas no one could land upon the
ialauds during breeding time without incurring the
penalty of death, and at no time of the year was it
lawful to kill them. Each island was destined for the
supply of a particular province, but if large was allotted
to two or three more. In the neighbourhood of Arequipa
and Arica, however, where it seldom rains, Gameness°
mentions that the natives manured with pilchards by
purring two Maize seeds into the head of one of them
end then burying this in a hole made by a dibble. This
was out of no disrespect, however, to the values of the
guano, for when the wind blows strongly from the sea,
. the rising tide on the Peruvian °oast brings with it
immense shoals of pilchard", which being unable to re-
cede when the ebb ensues, are left scattered in immense
numbers on the beach. The great object of the Peru-
vians being to manure the plant rather than the soil,
they abstained as much as they could from indis-
criminately scattering their guano on the surface
or in any other way using it as • top dressing; becalms
practice had taught them that • substance so volatile
easily evaporates, and consequently loses most of its 1
essential properties when exposed to the action of the .
air. With the aid of guano the ancient Peruvians I
were enabled to cultivate the same lands for the 1
I
tame crops (Maize and Millet) and render them permit- 1
nently productive. To their terraced seed lands no ,
repose was given. In the province of Arequipa, where
guano is applied, Maize yields 35 and Potatoes 45 for 1,
whilst in the same districts Wheat manured with horse
dung does not exceed 18. Much depends on the mode
of applying the guano. In Frezier's "Exploring Voyage
to the South Sea" (1712, 13, 14), it is stated that it
fertilises the land so that it yields 400 or 500 for 1 in all
sorts of grain—Wheat and Maize, and more particularly
the Ali (Capsicum baomittim), or red Guinea pepper,
without which ingredient in their dews the Peruvians
could not exist. The mode of application to this plant
I. worthy of recital. The plants are laid slanting on
the ground, in order that the trenches for irrigation may
bring the water gently to each stem; as much guano is
then put to each as will rest in the palm of the hand,
a little more when the flower is formed, and, finally, a
good handful when the pod appears. As it never rains,
great care is taken to have the plants watered, for the
undiluted salts in the manure would be apt to burn
them. And practically there is nothing different in our
modern modes of applying guano, unless that we, per-
haps, more frequently apply it in the dry form with
rifted earth or ashes for a diluent or vehicle. Feuillee
("Journal des Observations Physiques"), 1714, describes
the port of Arica as deriving its best revenues from the
ordure of birds called guano; and having storehouses
to which the article is brought for loading, in order to
be transported to various parts of tbe neighbouring
coast to manure the laud. The insupportable smell of
the ordure of the immense number of birds on the cliff
contributes greatly, he thinks, to the sickness of the
town, which, he says, the inhabitants might avoid by
firing upon the birds, but they prefer sacrificing their
health to sordid gain. Foreigners unaccustomed to the
smell appear to be afflicted with headaches. Humboldt
notices that it has the effect of causing those unaccus-
tomed to it to sneeze. My brother (Mr. T. W. Fyfe) men-
tioned that during his visit to the Chinch' Islands he
never knew what it was to enjoy existence until he could,
on a Sunday perhape, obtain possession of • ship's boat,
and pull two or three miles out to sea, beyond the waft
of the divine afflatus. The word Chincha, by the way,
in Spanish, signifies bug, and the Bug Islands, judging
from the shoals of insects I once saw crawling on the
sails of a vessel in which one of the first guano cargoes
of 1843 was imported into Berwick-upon-Tweed, full
well merit the appellation. The Norfolk Howards had
escaped from the guano in the hold, and gone aloft for
a little fresh air. In "Ulloa's Voyages," part ii., book
1, it is stated that they infuse warmth into the land
with the dung of sea fowls, extremely abundant along
the shore, called guanoes, and ti.eir dung—guano, a
general term among the Indians, and signifying excre-
ment in general. "With the beat of the sun the
deposits are formed into a kind of crust, which is
daily increased, and as the quantity collected is so
exceedingly great, it does not become exhausted,
notwithstanding they are constantly carrying it away,
because in a short time the deposits are regularly re-
plenished. I have been, be says, on some of these
islands when they were loading vessels, and the bad
smell emitted was so offensive that it became insup-
portable. There could be no doubt what the article
was. This dung is used on the lands sown with Maize,
and by their being a reed with it the crops are con-
siderably increased. A small quantity is put round
each plant, which is afterwards watered." The highest
authority on the natural history of this valuable substance
is, however, the distinguished naturalist, M. Made
d'Orbigny, in his" Voyages dans PAmerique Merl-
dionale." Voyaging along the Bolivian coast, whence,
by the way, Professor Anderson, in his epeech at Kelso,
stated that the best of all guano was exported, and
largely exported, although little of it ever reaches this
country, d'Orbigny says, "It would be difficult to ex-
plain the nature of accumulations so considerable as
these by the ordinary quantity of birds which we are hi
the habit of seeing upon our own shores; but in
America this is not the case. There the great number
of uninhabited points enables the feathered tribes to
roost and nestle in peace, at the same time that this
sea, in a virgin state as regards fishing, and perhaps
abounding in the finny race more than eny other in the,
world, furnishes them with an easy means of obtaining
• subsiatence. Hence it follows that there animals there
are so numerous that at certain seasons their various
tribes actually darken the air as the flocks move along.
All these marine tribes, in consequence of their in-
variably reposing in large societies on the same points
and there passing the night, unceasingly augment the
strata of guano; and, as it does not rain in that part of
the country, the surface is never washed by those heavy
showers to which we are accustomed in Europe. These
masses, therefore, cannot be removed unless it is with
the aid of man." The flocks of birds observed by M.
d'Orbigny were of the gull, gannet, pelican, and cor-
morant, and phaeton familiea. The island of Iquique,
be observes in passing, was formerly frequented only by
guatieros, or guano vessels, conveying the bird droppings
to the neighbouring Mainland. The inhabitants, he
remarks, had for three centuries been accustomed to
provide themselves on a small island situate to the
north of Heine, and not more than a league in Mecum.
ferenoe. He adds, as we shall shortly have occasion to
see is the fact, that the village in the Island is now
rendered more remarkable by the shipment of nitrate
of soda. There are however birds to which Dr. Unanne
introduces us, as the hicunaes, from whoa, dung, he
says, comes that red earth with • pungent and alkaline
smell, used as manure on the lands to increase it three
or four hundred fold—a discovery made by the ancient
Indians, who were consummate masters in agriculture.
Upper Peru, it seems, is studded with lakes, but they
afford so little Bah that their incalculable myriads of
aquatia birds, gulls, herons, docks, /cc., cone down to
the coos', where they remain till the summer sets in.
Guano consequently is not the accumulated droppinp
of one particular bird, although it takes the name of the
L kind that would appear to predominate. One writer
has been curious enough to calculate the probable rate
of accumulation of these deposits. The palmapedee or
I
web-footed tribes, he says, the pelican, cormorant, and
gannet are, no doubt, the largest producer', owing to
their size and the quantity of food they devour. Sap.
I paring then that there might be one million of each
constantly at work, and that each bird voided one oz.
weight in the course of the night, the aggregate quantity
In that case would exceed 90 tons in the 24 hours, or
32,850 tons in the year, to which are to be added the
leavings of numerous other tribe". In confirmation of
the accessions of soother kind mentioned by my brother,
it was estimated by the loaders on the S.W. 00111 A of
Africa in 1828 that there were half a million caroms of
seals lying on Possession Island, and fully as many more
on Seal and Penguin Islands within Angra and Piquena
Bay, which must either have fallen victims to some
dreadful pestilence, or have been destroyed by one of
those awful visitations called sandblasts. Sailors have
another opinion. Nothing would convince the South
Sea whaler that the creatures did not select for them-
selves • spot ashore to which they resort to die ; an"
who can tell whether such may not be their nate
Instinct when death is coming On? SOM. of you..
have red perhaps Fennimore Cooper's novel of "The
Sea Lions," in which there are graphic pictures of such
scenes of marine mortality.