220 FARMER'S ASSISTANT. 



may improve the crop twenty-five per cent ; that, sown in 

 June, it may improve English grass; that sown in August^ 

 and worked in, it may improve the ground; and that, sowa 

 in November, it will most probably neither assist the crop^ 

 nor the land* 



This, it must be remembered, is the Novascotia gyp- 

 sum. 



Mr. Peters says the foregoing very nearly agrees with 

 bis experience, He says he has always derived very bene- 

 ficial effects, in raising every kind of grain, from first wet- 

 ing his seed, and then rolling or drying it in gypsum, be- 

 fore sowing ; but that he never experienced any benefit, by 

 sowing this manure on any kind of grain, usually sown in 

 the broadcast, except buckwheat. 



He had probably never tried it on peas, and other legu- 

 minous crops. 



He found it excclent for tobacco, He says it will not 

 operate on an exhausted soil, that has become destitute of 

 vegetable or putrescent animal matter; but that when either 

 of these, or lime, is applied to such soil, then the gypsum, 

 even if it has been lying in the soil, without effect, will 

 have its usual operation. At the same time, he says that 

 lands newly cleared, which have commonly much animal 

 and vegetable matter in them, are not assisted by this 

 manure. 



He also considers it as efficient as lime, for the purpose 

 of expeling insects from the soil. 



Acids applied to gypsum produce an effervescence ; and 

 this is, therefore, one method of distinguishing this manure 

 from other kinds of limestone. Another is, to reduce the 

 mass, supposed to be gypsum, to powder ; then put it in a 

 vessel over the fire; and if it be gypsum an ebullition will 

 take place, when the mass becomes sufficiently heated. 



We have been informed, that gypsum has a most pow- 

 erful effect, when applied as a manure to strawberry -plants, 

 by greatly increasing the size and quantity of the fruit. 

 We believe that all leguminous plants, and all those which 

 grow above ground, in the shape of vines, derive much 

 benefit from this manure. 



Mr. Livingston says, that in traveling through Flanders 

 lie found that pyrites were used as a manure, particularly 

 for grass-lands, at the rate of about six bushels to the acre. 

 The seed grain is also covered with it, as it is with gypsum 

 in this Country. The stone is sufficiently impregnated with 

 sulphur to burn, when dry, and this is the method there 

 used to reduce it to powder. For this purpose, it is laid in 

 heaps, and when it has become red with burning, the fire is 

 extinguished ; for if it burn longer it becomes black, and 

 then the quality is not so good. 



