100 Influence of Season on Crops, Fall-ploughing, l£e. 



have dug the roads through the hills near George 

 Town, veins of a greasy looking substance, which I 

 think contains a portion of sulphur, hut when heated red 

 hot, it also smelt like burnt feathers, and where wells 

 are dug near George Town, I have observed considera- 

 ble quantities of a sulphureous earth thrown out, and the 

 water of some of them much impregnated with it (i. e. sul- 

 phur). Will not sulphureous earth operate as a manure, 

 probably like plaster of Paris ? If I am spared, I intend 

 to try it this year. 



Quere. Will not oyster shells burnt into lime, ope- 

 rate more powerfully on land, than when simply pounded, 

 and will they not go further ? Probably they will not last 

 so long. I tryed burnt oyster shells, when I lived near 

 Havre de Grace, about one hundred and sixty bushels 

 per acre, on a clay soil with but little effect. But be- 

 tween three and four hundred bushels to the acre, had a 

 very surprising effect upon a more loamy part of the 

 field ; the orchard grass on that part was always as high 

 as the post and rail fence, grew and continued while I 

 lived on the land which was seven or eight years after. 

 Putting this quantity on the ground was accidental, 

 for having left home for a few days, I set my black 

 people to burn the shells, probably about six or seven 

 hundred bushels, which I intended for between four and 

 five acres but my people to save trouble, put them all 

 on about two acres. The mode I practised was to run 

 furrows sixteen and a half feet apart, and to measure out 

 of the cart one bushel of the oyster shell lime about the 

 same distance apart between the furrows, which was a la- 

 bour my people were averse to, and therefore took the 



