TRANSACTIONS. 337 



of twelve or fifteen hours after tli3 cattle have been in the 

 hovel, there will be an inch or more in depth of urine in. 

 the gutter, (the ends being closed to retain the liquid,) and 

 the surface of the urine is covered with a thin ice-like pel- 

 licle of carbonate of lime. This proves that the gypsum, 

 has been freely decomposed, the acid set free to combine 

 with the ammonia, and the lime, in its affinity for carbonic 

 acid, rises to the surface of the liquid, as there is much of 

 this acid in the hovels every morning. But when we make 

 no use of plaster, there is none of this ice-like stratum of 

 lime in the gutter. 



From the above fact, we are of the opinion that we save 

 in sulphate of ammonia, many times the cost of the gyp- 

 sum, even if it has no other effect than the retention of the 

 ammonia. But its value on some soils, and favorable eifccts 

 upon the clover plant, justifies us in the belief that it pos- 

 sesses other manurial qualities, aside from its power of 

 combining with ammonia. 



But to go back to the "supposed results" of our free use of 

 plaster in our hovels and stables. We use our winter made 

 manure, on land planted with corn, potatoes and roots; 

 followed the next year with grain and grass seed. 



The three past seasons have been remarkable for severe 

 droughts in August and September, of each year, from 

 which cause a large portion of the grass seeds sown by our 

 farmers have been a dead loss, in consequence of the young 

 grass plants having been destroyed by the severity of the 

 late summer droughts; but on our farm, the grasses, espe- 

 cially the clover plants, have done as well as in wet sea- 

 sous. We have stocked down to grass, dry hillocks and 

 ridges of land, upon which the young grass plants have 

 withstood the eifects of the droughts, quite as well as those 

 upon the moistest parts of our fields ; though not quite as 

 luxuriant. We do not pretend to farm better, manure 

 higher, nor p'ow deeper, than our neighbors, but we have 

 been vastly more successful, the past three years, in getting; 

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