"We trust the editor is more correct in his other statements than in this, concerning the percentage of sea-salt in guano, which contains little more than a trace of it."
I have never analysed the guano, but depended on one or two analyses given by Professor Johnston, reader of chemistry in the University of Durham, England, in the appendix to his Lectures on Agricultural Chemistry. He gives tables of contents of two parcels, the first containing 30.3 per cent., the second rather more than 11 per cent. of sea-salt. I took the larger quantity, to prove that if dock-mud contained sea-salt, it could be no objection to it as a fertilizer.
It is highly important that the tables of analysis of celebrated manures should be correctly given, and if the editor of the Chronicle can furnish correct tables, he will be conferring an important boon on the agricultural community of the whole world.
Wm. Partridge.
From the American Agriculturist Almanac.
SOUTHERN CALENDAR FOR DECEMBER.
The closing month of the year is one in which every agriculturist should take an interest, and for many useful hints we will refer the reader to the Northern Calendar for this month.
Cotton-picking will probably occupy this month until Christmas, when this business will have been completed, if the culture has been well managed, and the season favorable. It would be well to start your plows and break up ground for corn; let nothing but cotton prevent—not even cleaning; for plowing is only one job; yet, if done soon, it is generally advantageous, and if bad weather should set in when it must be done, time will be lost, and a drawback ensue, whereas by plowing in time, cleaning can be done later.
In weather not employed about other labor more important, manure and trim all kinds of vines and fruit-trees, except the orange tribe. Transplant evergreens and other trees, sweet briers, honeysuckles, jasmines, &c.; sow late peas and beans, and set out onions for seed; set all hands at work in cleaning up for other crops, picking up limbs, grubbing, cleaning up hollows, sides of bayous, cutting down corn-stalks with hoes, gathering materials for making manure, &c., &c.