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FARMERS' REGISTER. 



clearly evinces, that they do extract food from the 

 atmosphere. 



I might quote the fertile state of new ungrazed 

 countries; their abatement in Itirtility if grazed 

 though uncleared ; the improvement of worn out 

 lands by eutl'ering them to grow up in trees ; their 

 greater improvement if these trees are cut down 

 and sutfered (o rot on the surface, as fur'.her prcols 

 that the earth cannot bear a constant drain of 

 vegetable matter, and that this matter in any (brm 

 enriches it, to evince both the ruinous etlects of 

 the three shift system, and that inclosing is the 

 remedy; but the intelligent reader will advert to 

 these and many other considerations, and I only 

 add, that the tact of the earth's surlace being the 

 depository of its fertility, proves that this fertility is 

 owing to atmospherical or vegetable matter, and 

 alone determines the efficacy of the inclosing 

 theory. 



Though we have past the best, all the resources 

 within our power (or manuring land are not ex- 

 hausted. Whether gypsum is a manure, or a 

 medium for drawing manure from the atmosphere 

 by increasing the growth of vegetables, is an un- 

 important inquiry. Within the last ten years, I 

 have expended between two and three hundred 

 tons of it in a variety of experiments, which have 

 produced the conclusion that it increases very con- 

 siderably the product of vegetable matter in al- 

 most all forms. Now if most or all of the matter 

 of vegetables is drawn from the atmosphere, and 

 if gypsum increases these drafts, we have only to 

 realize this unexpected treasure by turning it into 

 the earth. It increases like compound mterest, 

 and in a fevv years, land worth only one pound an 

 acre will become worth five. Thus by the help 

 of inclosing, gypsum and vegetables, we may 

 enable ourselves to fix, survey, divide, sell or 

 bestow on our children, atmosphere to a great 

 value. Let us tiierelbre at least admit it into the 

 catalogue of manures, when used in combination 

 with inclosiner. 



It would be tedious to recite a multitude of ex- 

 periments in the rapid excursions of an essayist, 

 through the agriculture kingdom, with very little 

 regard to method ; and iherelbre I shall only 

 trouble the public with the results deemed most 

 useful. Except when sown on clover, which it 

 benefits almost at all seasons, I have found gyp- 

 sum succeed best when covered. I would even 

 prefer harrowing it in with oata and clover, to 

 sowing it on the surface after they are up. The 

 best modec of using it, according to my experience 

 are sowing it on and ploughing ii in with coarse 

 litter: sowing it just in advance of the plough, 

 when fallowing lor corn, on land well covered 

 with vegetable matter from having been inclosed, 

 BO as to bury it with the litter; this is in fact the 

 came experiment with the last, except that the 

 gypsum has less vegetable manure to work upon 

 in the second than in the first case ; bestowing on 

 clover annually a top dressing, giving the prefer- 

 ence to the youngest, if there should be a defi- 

 ciency of the gypsum ; and rolling both wheat 

 and corn with it, when sown or planted, bushel to 

 bushel. This has been the settled course of a 

 farm for three or four years, and within no equal 

 term has it equally improved. The wheat crop is 

 less benefited immediately than any other, but 

 this rolling of the wheat facilitates the vegetation 

 of the clover sown on its surface in the spring, 



and strengthens it against summer drought, so 

 frequently fatal to it in coarse soils ; and by thus 

 improving the fertility of the land, considerably 

 augments succeeding crops. Intervals of twelve 

 yards wide, quite across large fields, sown with 

 unplastered wheat, whilst the rest was plastered 

 by mingling a bushel of one, with a bushel of the 

 other, exhibited to a line on each side by the natu- 

 ral growth, an inferiority of strength from the 

 cutting of the wheat throughout the whole period 

 of rest. 



The immediate benefit of gypsum to Indian 

 corn, is vastly greater than to any other crop, clo- 

 ver excepted, whilst its benefit to the land is 

 equally great. Unplastered spaces left across 

 large fields of clover, have in sundry instances 

 produced a third or fourth only of the adjoining 

 plastered clover. Unplastered spaces across large 

 fields of corn, have been frequently visible during 

 the whole crop, producing not an equal, but a 

 considerable difierence. Gypsum, clover, and in- 

 closing, working in conjunction, have within my 

 own knowledge doubled, trebled, and in a very 

 favorable soil quadrupled the value of land, in the 

 space of twelve or fiiteen years; whilst the land 

 regularly produced two exhausting crops, those of 

 corn and wheat in every four years of the period, 

 and these crops were continually increasing. 



Of lime and marl we have an abundance, but 

 experience does not entitle me to say any thing of 

 either. About a lamily, a variety of manures 

 maybe thrown together, and form a small store 

 for gardens and lots. Among these, ashes deserve 

 particular attention. Like other manures they 

 suffer by the exposure and evaporation, but less, 

 because water is a menstruum which will convey 

 much of their salts into the earth, if they are 

 spread ; the same menstruum conveys most of 

 these salts out of the ashes, if they are exposed 

 to it before they are applied as a manure. Hence 

 when ashes have not been reduced by water in 

 richness, they are to be used as a manure more 

 sparinaly, and when they have, more copiously. 

 In their unreduced state, just from the chimney, 

 when sprinkled an inch thick on the long litter and 

 dung from a recently cleansed stable, they con- 

 stitute the best manure I have ever tried for as- 

 paragus. The beds are well forked up in the 

 fall, covered two or three inches deep with the 

 unrotted stable manure, on which the fresh ashes 

 are placed, and so remain until they are thrown 

 into i)roper order in the spring. [Note C] 



Perhaps this subject ought to have preceded 

 that of manuring, as it is idle even to think of a 

 good system of agriculture in any point of view, 

 if the labor on which it depends is convulsed by 

 infusions the most inimical to its utility; and if 

 those who direct it, are to live in a constant dread 

 of its loss, and a doubt of their own safety. Such 

 a state of uncertainty is painful to the parties, un- 

 friendly to improvement, and productive of extra- 

 vagance and idleness in all their varieties. Yet 

 those who keep it alive, persuade themselves that 

 they are complying with the principles of religion, 

 patriotism and morality. Into such fatal errors is 

 human nature liable to fall, by its deliriums for ac- 

 quiring unattainable perfection. 



