GYPSUM OE PLASTER OP PARIS, &a 



party are light in this matter, we shall not here at- 

 teoipt to decide, but will state one fact about which 

 there is no controversy ; that is if liquid sulphuric 

 acid and carbonate of ammonia, are brought in con- 

 tact by mixture, decomposition will ensue, the car- 

 bonic acid of the ammonia will be driven off; and the 

 free ammonia will combine with the acid, resuhing in 

 gypsum of ammonia. 



In 100 lbs. of gypsum there is about 46 lbs. of 

 sulphuric acid, (oil of vitriol.) It requires 400 lbs. 

 of water to dissolve one pound of gypsum. From 

 this it seems that 400 lbs. of water would only put 

 less than hilf a pound of the acid in a favorable con- 

 dition to combine with ammonia, for it is a very gen- 

 eral law of chemical affmity, that when two sub- 

 stances combine chemically, one of them must be in 

 a fluid state. 



But we think that urine, especially while warm, 

 possesses greater solvent power over the gypsum, than 

 water at the temperature of 60°. In the rear of our 

 cattle, in one of our hovels, there is a tight trough 

 or gutter, 24 feet long, 14 inches wide, and 2 inches 

 deep, in which the droppings of the cattle are re- 

 ceived. If we put plaster in the gutter, aiid make 

 no use of muck, or litter for bedding, in the course of 12 

 or 15 hours after the cattle have been in the hovel, 

 there will be an inch or more in depth of urine in the 

 gutter, (the ends being closed to retain the liquid,) 

 and the surface of the urine is covered with a thin 

 ice-like pellicle of carbonate of lime. This proves 

 that the gypsum has been freely decomposed, the acid 

 set free to combine with the ammonia, and the lime 

 in its affinity for carbonic acid, rises to the surface of 

 the liquid, as there is much of this acid in the hovels 

 every morning. 



But when we make no use of plaster, there is none 

 of this icedike stratum of lime in the gutter. 



From the above facts, we are of the opinion, that 

 we save in sulphate of ammonia, many times the cost 

 of the gypsum, even if it has no other effect than the 

 retention of the ammonia. But its value on some 

 soils, and favorable effects upon the clover plant, jus- 

 tifles ns in the belief, that it possesses other manurial 

 qualities, aside from its power of combining with am- 

 monia. 



But to go back to the " supposed resnlts" of our 

 free use of plaster in our hovels and stables. We 

 use our winter made manure, on land planted with 

 com, potatoes, and roots; followed the next year with 

 grain, and grass seed. 



The three past seasons have been remarkable for 

 severe drouths in August and September, of each 

 year, from which cause a large portion of the grass 

 seeds sown by our farmers have been a dead loss in 

 consequence of the young grass plants having been 

 destroyed by the severity of the late summer drouths; 

 but on our farm, the grass, especially the clover plants, 

 have done as well as in wet seasons. We have stock- 

 ed down to grass, dry hillocks and ridges of land, 

 upon which the young grass plants have withstood 

 the effects of the drouths, quite as well as those upon 

 the moistest parts of our fields ; though not quite as 

 luxuriant. We do not pretend to farm better — man- 

 ure higher, nor plow deeper than our neighbors, but 

 we have been vastly more successful, the past three 

 years in getting fwhat is termed) a catch of grass 



and we can attribute it to no other cause than that 

 of our free use of plaster in our hovels for the sever- 

 al past winters. We have no doubt but guano, pure 

 and unadulterated, is a most valuable manure for the 

 wheat, and some others of our cullivated crops — pro- 

 viding, we except the summer drouths; yet, we be- 

 lieve most of our farmers had better expend money 

 for plaster, to be used daily in their hovels and stables 

 during winter and summer too, if they keep their 

 cows in the barn at night, as every good or bad far- 

 mer should, if he consults his interesta Hay, with 

 us, in farming, is of vastly more consequence than 

 the wheat crop. 



But if wo wish to grow wheat, we had better do 

 it through the aid of plaster and clover than to at- 

 tempt it, by the use of guano at sixty or more dollars 

 per ton. 



Plaster, used as we have used it, carries to the 

 land when mixed with the manure, lime, sulphur, and 

 ammonia, these very essential constituents of plants. 

 Some apparently good soils do not contain these sub- 

 stances in sufficient quantities — neither does common 

 farm-yard manure, for we know this to bo true, from 

 the fact that we have time and again, seen the corn 

 crop very much increased in value, (on good looking 

 and well manured soils,) by the simple addition of a 

 tea-spoonful of plaster to the hill, at the time the corn 

 was planted. We went two miles last September, to 

 look at a field of corn, planted on good soil, well 

 manured, all plastered in the hill except occasionally 

 two rows together had no plaster ; we judged the 

 plastered would produce one-third more corn. But 

 since the harvest, the eii)erimenter has informed us 

 that the unplu-stered rows did not produce more than 

 half as much as the same number of rows that re- 

 ceived the plaster. 



