278 Extracts from the Older Journals. [Nov., 



sum as a manure in most partsof Pennsylvania, where it has been 

 tried. It seems to be agreed on, that after ten or eleven years 

 use, the gentlemen still entertain their good opinion of it; that it 

 remarkably recovers exhausted and impoverished soils; that one 

 bushel and an half, or two bushels, will be sufficient, if yearly re- 

 peated, for clover; that it will answer well in a sandy loam, upon 

 a limestone bottom; that though it is serviceable when strewed 

 in powder, on growing plants, it succeeds best in repetition, after 

 cultivating and dressing slightly with stable manure, or with 

 ploughing in green manures. As to the supposed sterility occa- 

 sioned by gypsum, Mr. Peters observes, that his own experience 

 teaches him it does not exhaust more than other manures do, par- 

 ticularly dung, and that to produce its full effect, it must have 

 something to feed on, as some farmers express it; must meet with 

 something in the soil to decompound it; and where this is want- 

 ing, the Plaster of Paris does no good. When strewed on the 

 surface, it most remarkably benefits white and red clover and most 

 grasses; though it did not appear to do any good to winter grain. 

 It is good for all leguminous plants, buck-wheat, flax, hemp, rape, 

 and oily seeded plants; most products of the kitchen-garden, and 

 for fruit-trees; as well as for oats and barley, when sprinkled at 

 sowing time on the wetted seeds. Mr. Peters has sowed gypsum 

 at all times of the year, and has found it answer well, if strewed 

 over the land at any time from the beginning of February to the 

 middle of April; and he directs it to be sowed in misty weather 

 to avoid the loss of having it blown away M-ith the winds if sown 

 in a dry time. Some do not sow it until vegetation begins, though 

 our author thinks it will have an effect if sowed at any season. 

 As to the quantity of produce by the acre, Mr. Peters affirms, he 

 gets as much from gypsum as from any other manure; that the 

 hay is better than that produced by dung; that the cattle waste 

 less of it; and if the grass is used for pasture, the creatures are 

 much more fond of the 'plastered than of the dunged produce. 

 He is satisfied with a ton and a half the acre at a cutting; he 

 mows twice, and has a third growth for grazing afterwards. Its 

 durability is such, that though sometimes it will be exhausted in 

 one year, yet the efforts of one dressing, of three or four bushels 

 to the acre, has been felt for five or six years, gradually decreas- 

 ing in its powers, and seems to be capable of prolonging the 

 efficacy of dung; and has been known to do good, when sowed 

 repeatedly and in small quantities, for a continuance of twelve 

 years and more. The author expresses himself with much pro- 

 priety, on the pernicious increase of weeds, through the neglect 

 of husbandmen, and thinks the French gypsum preferable for ag- 

 ricultural purposes, to that brought from Nova vScotia. We be- 

 lieve, with him, that there is a great variety in the gypsum, and 



