216 GRASSES AND FORAGE PLANTS. 



are used, the proportion may be about one to three. In this 

 case, the two substances mutually assist each other, and the 

 compound is, perhaps, better than either alone would be. So 

 potash added to peat muck, makes a valuable compound. 



In this connection we should allude to the practice of burn- 

 ing sea-weed as a manure. The ashes of it are spread upon 

 grass and pasture land. They form a very useful and powerful 

 stimulant, but the process of burning sea-weed causes the loss 

 of its most fertilizing qualities. The most common and efficient 

 mode of application is to carry it directly upon the grass as a 

 top-dressing. The coarse rock-weed and kelp decay in a much 

 shorter time than the fine sea-weed, and are, no doubt, better 

 than this. Whenever sea-weed is used, it is best on sandy or 

 gravelly soils. From twenty-five to thirty, or even forty cart 

 loads to the acre, are sometimes applied. Peat ashes form, in 

 some cases, a valuable top-dressing for grass and pasture lands. 

 In Holland, where every fertilizer is preserved with care, peat 

 ashes as well as wood and coal ashes, are highly esteemed. 

 The great value of the first is well known to many, and if those 

 who have them will spread them upon grass at the rate of 

 fifteen or twenty bushels on the lighter, and thirty or forty on 

 the heavier soils, they will be abundantly repaid. 



If what has been said be true, and it is the result of many 

 experiments, some of which have come directly under my own 

 observation, farmers would do better to buy ashes on the return 

 of every spring, than to sell them, as is ofteii done. 



Of the use of gypsum, or plaster of Paris, the most contra- 

 dictory opinions have been expressed. So far as my observa- 

 tion goes, — and I have both seen and tried many interesting 

 experiments on the old soils of this State, and the newer soils of 

 Maine, — the application to moist soils has been satisfactory. It 

 has been said that plaster does not benefit natural pastures. 

 This, I apprehend, depends chiefly on the character of the soil. 

 In one instance, a large pasture Avhich had become worn and 

 somewhat unproductive, received a generous top-dressing of- 

 plaster. The grass started sooner, and continued throughout 

 the season to look far better than the adjoining pastures of pre- 

 cisely the same soil. So far as could be ascertained, the increase 

 in grass over the adjoining pastures, was about seventy-five per 

 cent. Nor was this all. This pasture came in the next season 



