122 TREES GROWING ON PURE GYPSUM. 



in vast numbers, with tall, naked stems and blackened 

 branches ; and those which were growing in this place of 

 pits, were also all more or less injured by the fire. On the 

 whole, the spot had a most striking and desolate appear 

 ance, and will well repay the traveller for the hour s 

 delay it will cost him to visit the spot. One great 

 hollow rim seemed to encircle the area over which were 

 spread these smaller ponds and pits, intermixed with 

 ravines and cliffs, caused by the pits falling or merging 

 into one another. While portions of the deposit were 

 being dissolved out in detail, and carried off through the 

 porous wells, the whole area was sinking in a mass 

 destined, no doubt, in time to become one of those exten 

 sive ponds or swallows such as I had previously seen on 

 the rich land to the east of the Amherst marshes, and in 

 the country above Windsor in Nova Scotia. 



Though gypsum is here so abundant, it has not been 

 much used for agricultural purposes. I conversed with 

 two farmers, one of whom had tried it without effect, the 

 other with marked benefit on oats and grass. Among 

 the grass, it had brought up a crop of clover, where 

 none had ever been seen before. I have already men 

 tioned that, in western New York, a hot dry summer is 

 considered most favourable for the beneficial action of 

 this mineral substance. This may have been the nature 

 of the season when it succeeded with the one, and not so 

 when it failed with the other, of these experiments. The 

 fact of young and old trees growing as above described, 

 with their roots fixed in and upon the pure soft gypsum 

 rock, proves at least that it is unlikely, even when 

 present in large quantities in the soil, to do material 

 injury to vegetation. It might be useful, however, to 

 try which of our cultivated plants will, and which will not, 

 grow well under such circumstances. 



I have already spoken of the good land and fine 

 farms in the beautiful vale of Sussex. The extensive 



