154 ESSAY ON TOP DRESSINGS 



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 bas been wonderful. In April of 

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

 what unproductive, received a generous topdressini^ 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 himdred 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 ris- 

 ing from fermenting vegetable matter, aud 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 

 amount of this noxious odor, this ammonia which it contains. 

 This gas, commonly known as hartshorn, is an exceedingly 

 powerful stimulant. Nor will it appear unimportant, when we 

 bear in mind that two and one quarter pounds of this ammonia, 

 lost by fermentation, is equal to the loss of one hundred and 

 fifty pounds of grass or grain. Scientific men will say that 

 this gas is taken up in the atmosphere by the rain, and de- 

 scends with the rain to fertilize the earth. This is very true. 



