Vol. VII.— No. 26. 



AND HORTICULTURAL JOURNAL. 



205 



gish beast, that may be forced into a motion 

 greatly beyond its natural gait, but if continually 

 put forward in this way for too long a period, its 

 spirits become broken, its strength cxliausted, and 

 it finally tires and becomes incapable of further 

 exertion, until, by rest, it has been enabled to re- 

 cover its wonted vigor. 



This opinion, taken up hastily, no doubt, and 

 wthout much reflection, but bearing the authori- 

 ty of some great name, and wearing the air of 

 plausibility, seems to have been as incautiously 

 adopted, merely because men in general had rath- 

 er subscribe to any opinion, on difficult subjects, 

 that had the plea of plausibility and ingenuity on 

 its side, and was ready made up to their hand, 

 than be at the trouble and pains of reflecting and 

 forming one for themselves. But as light, heat, 

 air, and moisture are alone essential to vegetation, 

 there was the less necessity for resorting to the 

 stimulant properties of gypsum and the excitabiU- 

 ty of the earth : it being believed to be a well es- 

 tablished fact that the only, or at least the chief 

 office of the earth, is simply to serve as a matrix 

 or bed for jilants to" grow in, and as a kind cf 

 laboratory in which the various processes of veg- 

 etation are elaborated. 



Much, to be sure, depends on the nature, tex- 

 tni'e and preparation of the soil, which should be 

 such, either naturally or artificially, as readily to 

 imbibe moisture and to permit only of its gradual 

 escape, that as much nourishment as possible may 

 be retained to feed the roots of the young plants 

 and to admit of an easy extension of them. 



When, therefore, the soil is not naturally such 

 as we would have it, it should be our business to 

 make it so. Sand is 0(>en, -svann, and gQncrc-y^ K 

 freely receiving, and as freely parting with heat 

 and moisture. Clay, on the caatrary, is cold, dif- 

 ficultly penetrable, and very retentive. Thus, 

 when our soil is too sandy, we should dress it 

 with clay. When clay too much abounds, with 

 sand. Attention to the texture of the soil is as 

 necessary as manuring : for, unless that is of a 

 suitable quality, it is scarcely possible, by any pre- 

 paration we can give it, to affijrd to manure an 

 opportunity of exerting its full power ; the chief 

 virtue of which, it is believed, resides in its liques- 

 cent salts, which readily attract moisture from the 

 atmosphere, and generate heat by thus hastening 

 the decomposition of its putrescent particles ; in 

 this way producing eflects similar to those of plas- 

 ter. 



Lands rendered sterile by an excessive use of 

 plaster, and which are then said to be " plaster- 

 sick," are observed to be much in the condition of 

 stiff clays that have been run together by hasty, 

 beating rains, and become baked as we call it ; so 

 that when an attenqit is made to cultivate them, 

 they break up in clods, and will not produce. — 

 This arises, not, as has been imagined, from tlie 

 strength of the earth having been exhausted by 

 too great stimulation, but from the solvent |)ropi;r- 

 ty of the sulphuric acid contained in the plaster, 

 (for, besides its two before mentioned properties, 

 it is also known to possess that of a solvent,) 

 which, by dissolving a jiortion of the ferruginous 

 and other mineral matters contained in the e:ir:h, 

 and converting them into clay, ultimately renders 

 that soil stiff and obdurate which before was oi)cn 

 and free. So that the texture of the land in this 

 case, as in that of stiff clays, is no longer such as 

 is proper for vegetation. Being too much com- 

 pacted and its particles too closely wedged into 



one another freely to receive, retain and gradual- 

 ly transmit heat, moisture, &c. But this is a dis- 

 covery which leads at once to the remedy ; for in 

 both cases it becomes necessary that these lands 

 should be dressed with sand, which should be 

 ploughed and mixed with the earth so minutely 

 as to divide and separate the particles of clay and 

 keep it loose and open ; when, no doubt, " plaster- 

 sick" lands, as well as those that are sterile and 

 unproductive, from being naturally too stiff and 

 clayey, will be quickly restored and made to pro- 

 duce as well as ever. 



The idea of dressing lands with sand or clay, 

 according to circumstances, seems as yet to have 

 been but little thought of in Virginia. Nothing, 

 however, is niose certain than that, if judiciously 

 applied, they will be found equally as valuable as 

 any other dressing we could give them. These 

 things are now as well understood in England a.^ 

 any other process in farming. There pits both of 

 sand and clay are opened, and frequently they are 

 carried the distance of many miles : it being a 

 well known observation there, that the first step 

 towards improving lands, if not naturally of a suit- 

 able texture, is to make thein so artificially ; be- 

 cause they know that this is necessary to give to 

 manure its full effect. 



Formerly, before this was well understood and 

 attended to, and previous to the introduction of 

 gypsum, they attempted the improvement of their 

 lands with marl. It succeeded very well at first, 

 but by an incautious and excessive use of it, they 

 finally rendered them barren and unproductive : 

 and, in some instance.*, they are said not to have 

 perfectly recovered in less than eighty years. — 

 -Marl 13 a Tut, iiiictioua hind of oQrth, and very te- 

 nacious ; hence, when used in too great quanti- 

 ties, it has the effect of binding the soil, and caus- 

 es it to become so close and cohesive as to ren- 

 der it unfit for useful production. Such lands 

 might have been said to be inarl-sick, and would 

 have required the same remedy as those that are 

 now said to be " plaster-sick," and I may add that 

 are clay-sick.* 



Burning stiff lands has nearly the same effect 

 as sanding of them, by indurating the particles 

 and bringing them somewhat into the condition of 

 pounded bricks. 



A FRIEND TO AGRICULTURE. 



[JVole bi/ the Editor of the American Farmer,] — 

 We have lately conversed with several farmers of 

 experience, who have used plaster of Paris for 

 many years. Their impressions appear to be, in 

 brief: that land which was rapidly brought some 

 years from a state of exhaustion to a state of fer- 

 tility, by the use of plaster to promote the growth 

 of clover, and to which land plaster had never be- 

 fore been applied, being since reduced by culture 

 to its original degree of infertility, that land refus- 

 es to he acted upon again by plaster in any thing 

 like the degree which it produced when formerly 

 applied.] 



A Farmer of German Flats. — Mr Chester Paine, 

 of this town, raised this year, on less than 11^ 

 rods cf ground, 52 bushels of Onions, Turnips, 

 and Potatoes ; being 723i bushels per acre. — 

 The circumference of one Turnip was nineteen 

 inches. 



' II is an old saying in England, lliat 



" He who marls sand buys land — 

 He wlio marls clay lliro\vs ail away." 



From Ihe American Farmer. 



Important Observations on the Preservation of In- 

 dian Corn from the Fly or H'evil, in the Com 

 House. 



Dear Sir — For many years past, I had de- 

 termined if ever I should build another cora 

 house, it should be double the size necessary for 

 housing my corn in the old way ; intending to 

 store it as jjulled with the husks on. In the sum- 

 mer of 1827, I built such a house with a door at 

 each end, and in the month of October from the 

 7th to the 27th, housed my corn therein from the 

 carts as it was hauled in with the husks thereon. 

 When the mornings were damp, the part then 

 pulled was deposited in the barn for immediate 

 use. Within two or three weeks, I have husked 

 out by an invalid hand, all that remained of the 

 crop so put away, and find that it has kept to ad- 

 miration, it comes from the husk glossy and fresh 

 like new coin, and not a layer more imperfect and 

 unsound thfin would have been, had it been husk- 

 ed out at the time of pulling, and then separated 

 in the usual way. 



I send you three ears of my last year's crop, 

 number 1, 2, 3. The two ears numbered 1, 2, 

 were stored in the corn house as above, and late- 

 ly husked. On examination you will find No. 1 

 perfectly free from fly holes, not a grain thereof 

 injured ; this ear was covered entirely with its 

 husk. No. 2 has the most of its grains towards 

 the small end only, fly eaten, as you will observe; 

 this ear was not covered entirely with its husk 

 out to the end theieof, and the part fly eaten ex- 

 posed. No. 3 is an ear that my manager, it being 

 handsome and speckled, accidentally took from a 

 heap as they were husking for immediate use in 

 the fall of 1827, and carried into the house and 

 put into bis closet, where it remained until lately. 

 As we both observe in husking out during the last 

 two or three weeks, that a good deal of the corn 

 was at the small end fly-eaten, and that it was 

 never so in any of the ears except those not fully 

 protected by the husk, it induced him to bring out 

 and show me the ear No. 3, now sent, which had 

 been in his closet during the year past. This ear 

 as you see is literally eaten to a honey comb, al- 

 most every grain thereof, by the fly. 



From the above circumstances I draw the con- 

 clusion, that if I had husked out my crop last fall 

 in the usual way, and so housed it, the whole 

 thereof would have been totally ruined by the fly. 

 Such an event did occur to my crop of corn made 

 in the year of 1826 which was husked out anil 

 housed as is generally practised. What remain- 

 ed thereof in the fall of 1827, was scarcely fit to 

 use, from the (juantity of the fly therein. I am 

 therefore satisfied that the plan of housing corn 

 with its coat on, at any rate one half the crop 

 made, is infinitely superior to the old method ; 

 moreover it is less likely to be pilfered. 



The fall of 1827, winter and spring of 1827, 

 1828, were from the general quantity of rain that 

 fell, peculiarly unpropitious to my experiment ; on 

 examination through the winter of 1827, 1828, 

 the entire mass of husks and corn, for we dug 

 into it, was often found in a giving state, and 

 sometimes heated in a small degree, which alarm- 

 ed me for its safety, but on the occurrence of a 

 north wester, the husks almost immediately be- 

 came cold, crisp, ar.d dry, as when put into the 

 house. 



Some of the husks themselves were lost, per- 



