206 [Senate 



served a greater or more striking effect, result from gypsum, than in 

 a certain instance within my own experience. I sowed a single 'land' 

 of wheat in the spring of 1832, for experiment, in the middle of a 

 field, having an idea that gypsum is inoperative, applied direct to 

 wheat. I was not disappointed, I could not distinguish even a shade 

 of difference in the color of the wheat, butthe experiment, eventually^ 

 was to me most interesting. In the spring of 1833, 1 sowed the whole 

 field with clover seed, and notwithstanding the field was deeply plow- 

 ed in the fall previous, and the gypsum on the ' land' as above stated, 

 was of course plowed under in the meantime, yet the growth of clo- 

 ver, in the following summer of 1833 on the half acre sowed with 

 about half a bushel of gypsum in the spring of 1832, just about one 

 year before the clover seed was sowed, " astonished the nhtives :" thus, 

 not only overthrowing the theory that gypsum benefits crops or ope- 

 rates by attracting or absorbing moisture from the atmosphere, and 

 must be applied to growing crops. But my experiment was conclu- 

 sive, and demonstrated beyond any cavil, that the soil is the laboratory 

 which brings this valued mineral agent into action ; and also proving 

 the utter fallacy of the common practice and opinion, that gypsum 

 must be sown on the leaves, or lungs, the respiratory organs of the 

 growing crop. It occurs to me, the experiment, or rather the dis- 

 covery, is an important one to the scientific farmer. Theory is re- 

 versed, clover, corn and other crops, receive no benefit from gypsum, 

 above the surface of the soil ; it must be first dissolved and rendered 

 soluble, then taken up by the spongioles of the roots of plants. My 

 conyiction, on this subject, is such, that I want no additional evidence 

 to establish my theory. In the experiment above narrated, it must 

 be remembered the whole field was sown with clover seed, and no 

 gypsum sowed, excepting the one land, at the time above stated ; the 

 remainder of the clover presented so sickly a contrast with the luxu- 

 riant gypsumed part, that I sowed the balance with gypsum, but found 

 it required a year of time, to produce an equal effect — which effect 

 was only developed after the gypsum had time to reach the roots of 

 the clover. Much of the specific food of the wheat crop is evidently 

 extracted from the subsoil^ by the long tap roots of clover ; hence, a 

 clover lay, with the second crop plowed under, on a limed soil, is the 

 best imaginable preparation Tor a wheat crop. 



Spring Lawn Farm, Pequea, Lancaster county, Pa. ^ Dec. 28, 1844. 



CLOVER SEED. 



Statement of Henry Brewer, of Enfield, Tompkins county, of his 

 crop of Clover Seed, yielding, from three acres and ten rods of ground, 

 ten bushels of seed, weighing 60 lbs. per bushel ; one bushel 11 lbs. 

 at 52 lbs. per bushel ; and half a bushel of tailings, weighing 38 lbs. 

 per bushel : 



