The Camden weekly journal. [volume] (Camden, South-Carolina) 1853-1861, 1854-01-31
agruultural,
From the Southern Caltirator.
GuanO and Cotton Culture.

Recent accounts from Peru inform us that
extensive beds Of guano have lately been found,
which are said to be nearly meXbaustibe. 1t
is to be hoped that this information will prove
we'll founded, for nothing is more needed i'll
this country than full supply Of highly con
centrated manure which may be cheaply trans.
ported far into the interior, and sold at price
that will enable all cultivators Of our great
commercial staples to purchase and use it at a
profit. We can not long continue to export so
many million tons OF cotton, tobacco, grain
and provisions, every year, from our farms,
and not exhaust their elements Of fertility. The
injury done to the land is not less when cot
ton. -four and meat sent from the South and
West are consumed in New England, than it
would be if they were exported to Europe
What all our arated fields demand is full and
perfect restitution cf the atoms removed by.
tillage and in the crops harvested, so far as air
and water fail to supply them
Guano now promises the most available re.
source for obtaining the raw material needed
for the economical growth Of cotton; but the
market price of the article must be greatly re-
duced before cotton planters can be large con-
sumers of this imported manure. The monopo-
" of the Peruvian government should be ex.
tinguished by purchase or otherwise, for the
equal benefit of our agriculture, commerce and
manufactures. Let every known deposit Of
bird manure in all the islands Of the sea be
free to the commerce of the world, and the
price of cotton and other important STAPLES
would soon tie governed in good degree by
that of guaao. Every member of Congress
and otherpub servants at Washington, should
be duly uotifed of the Importance of cheap
guano to, the great agricultural interest; and
this interest ought to be far more felt and res.
pected by all legislative and executive bodies
than it now is Farmers might easily prevent
the continuance of that spendthrlt policy which
now compels them TO draw SO CONSTANT y on
the soil as fixed capital, and prevents their
making adequate restitution for the funds alb
stracted. Every intelligent planter must see
that no capital can long endure this ceaseless
drain on its limited amount. Such planting is
alike Injurious to the public and the land under
cultivation. Probably the guano to be import
cd the next six months will exceedin quantity
that brought into the country i'll any previous
twelve months. Sixty-five vessels are said to
he laden, or about to be, at one group Of is
lands with this manure for American consump.
ton; so great is The demand for the precious
food for plants The ocean is full of it, but
IFS cheap extraction is yet to be discovered by
the growing necessities of the present, or a fu.
ture age. Every stream that runs into The sea
carries with it some of the earthly constituents
of crops; and down to the sea man must 90
for his richest and cheapest manure, as the
supply there is truly inexhaustible.
Between sea-water and cotton shirt there
is a very close affinity; and yet how few men
who wear shirts made of cotton, apd how lie"
ofthcir wives clothed in the same material, see
the intimate relation that subsists between the
various salts of the ocean anil the great staple
of the Sou,hl Most persons know that an
oyster is nutritious food, and that it grows in
salt water; but why this same oyster yields u
manure worth ten or twenty times more than
tina. nf pig fed on corn, of a like weight, how
few understand Fish are the food of birds
uhosa excrememts constitute commercial qua
no and fish themselves have been used for
indefinite ages to feftilize the ground cultiVa.
led ly man, BIT 100 pounds Of dung for.1ed