106 WHAT I KNOW OF FARMING. 



stood peculiarity of soil or climate renders it there 

 ineffective. Then let its use be there abandoned ; 

 but it will still remain true that, in many localities 

 and in countless instances, Gypsum has been fully 

 proved one of the best and cheapest commercial fer- 

 tilizers known to mankind. 



I never tried, but on the strength of others' testi- 

 mony believe in the improvement of soils by means 

 of calcined clay or earth. Mr. Andrew B. Dickin- 

 son showed me where he had, during a dry Autumn 

 plowed up the road-sides through his farm, started 

 fires with a few roots or sticks, and then piled on 

 soda of the upturned clay and grass-roots till the fire 

 was nearly smothered, when each heap smoked and 

 smouldered like a little coal-pit till all of it that was 

 combustible was reduced to ashes, when ashes and 

 burned clay were shoveled into a cart and strewn 

 over his fields, to the decided improvement of their 

 crops. Whoever has a clay sod to plow up, and is 

 deficient in manure, may repeat this experiment with 

 a moral certainty of liberal returns. 



