Soluble Pacific Guano Poster

cloth poster

Sales poster advertising guano. Poster printed on a white linen type material. It is printed in black and red ink and reads: "SOLUBLE PACIFIC/ GUANO/ FOR/ WHEAT/ OATS/ BARLEY/ CORN/ POTATOES/ HOPS/ TOBACCO/ GRASS/ FRUIT AND VEGETABLES./ HIGH-GRADE STANDARD/ RELIABLE FERTILIZER/ FOR SALE BY". The poster illustrates an image of a bird with a fish in its beak as it stands on a sack of Soluble Pacific Guano.

Guano happens when seabirds eat seafood. In arid areas of the world, especially on islands off the west coast of South America, seabird dung built up over the centuries. About 1840, American whalemen and other mariners came upon these islands of bird dung and recognized the fertilizing value of the phosphates in guano. The guano rush lasted from the 1840s into the 1870s, with the greatest quantities coming from the Chincha Islands of Peru. This stinking trade wrung the life out of hundreds of Indian and Chinese guano diggers, and it employed some of the finest American ships, carrying the acrid powder to revitalize the fields of Europe and America.