99; Robert Russell, _North America_, p.

269.] [Footnote 29: _Southern Agriculturist_, II, 563; _American Farmer_, II, 98; H.T.Cook, _Life and Legacy of David R.Williams_, pp.

197-209.] The importation of fertilizers began with guano.

This material, the dried droppings of countless birds, was discovered in the early 'forties on islands off the coast of Peru;[30] and it promptly rose to such high esteem in England that, according to an American news item, Lloyd's listed for 1845 not less than a thousand British vessels as having sailed in search of guano cargoes.

The use of it in the United States began about that year; and nowhere was its reception more eager than in the upland cotton belt.
Its price was about fifty dollars a ton in the seaports.