ESSEX SOCIETY. 85 



experiments, some of which have come directly under our own 

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

 of every spring, than to sell them as is very often the case in 

 this part of Massachusetts. 



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

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

 tion goes, — and we 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 fully satis- 

 factory. It has been said that plaster does not benefit natural 

 pastures. This is not strictly correct. In recent experiments 

 on pasture lands, the result has been wonderful. In April of 

 last year, a large pasture, which had become worn and some- 

 what 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 precisely 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 present season 

 with the greatest luxuriance. And to this day, its load of beau- 

 tiful green is the wonder of the neighborhood. Its effect on 

 clover and Timothy is even greater than on pastures. Many 

 have supposed that plaster would exhaust the soil. This would 

 not seem to be the case, for, as it takes four hundred and thirty 

 parts of water to decompose one part of plaster, its decomposi- 

 tion is slow, and consequently its influence is felt for several 

 years. How, then, can it have such immediate and beneficial 

 effects ? It retains the fertilizing gas which is constantly rising 

 from fermenting vegetable matter, and gives it up at a proper 

 time, for the nourishment of the plant. It does not, like lime, 

 cause vegetable matters to decay, but rather when they decay, 

 holds their most important parts from escaping. 



The infectious odor, which rises from decaying vegetable 

 matter, from the stable, from the manure heap, and impercep- 

 tibly from the whole surface of the earth, is far the most im- 

 portant element for the growth of the plant. Plaster fixes this, 

 and the first shower washes it into the earth, to feed the roots 

 of plants. The relative value of manure, depends upon the 



