FOR MOWING AND PASTURE LANDS. 153 



ashes are used, the proportion may be about one to three. In 

 this case the two substances mutually assist each other, and 

 the compound is, perhaps, better than either alone would be. 

 So potash added to peat mud, makes a compound equal to the 

 best stable manure. 



In these remarks no mention has been made of coal ashes as 

 a top dressing. There is a very common impression that these 

 are worthless. We have known of their use in but few in- 

 stances with decided advantage. On clay soils they may, per- 

 haps, be of some value, but other substances will be found 

 more profitable. In this connection we should allude to the 

 practice of burning sea-weed as a manure. The ashes of it 

 are spread upon grass and pasture land. They form a very 

 useful and powerful stimulant, but the process of burning sea- 

 weed causes the loss of its most fertilizing qualities. The 

 most common and efficient mode of application is to carry it 

 directly upon the grass as a top dressing. The coarse rock- 

 weed and kelp decay in a much shorter time than the fine sea 

 weed, and are, perhaps, better than this. Whenever sea weed 

 is used, it is best on sandy or gravelly soils. From twenty- 

 five to thirty, or even forty cart loads to the acre, are some- 

 times applied. Peat ashes form, in some cases, a valuable top 

 dressing for grass and pasture lands. In Holland, where eve- 

 ry fertilizer is preserved with care, peat ashes as well as wood 

 and coal ashes, are highly esteemed. The great value of the 

 first is well known to many, and if those who have them will 

 spread them upon grass at the rate of fifteen or twenty bushels 

 on the lighter, and thirty or forty on the heavier soils, they 

 will be abundantly repaid. 



If what has been said be true, and it is the result of many 

 experiments, some of which have come directly under our own 

 observation, farmers would do better to buy ashes on the re- 

 turn 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 

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