ON MANURES. 119 



on sowing- five bushels more per acre, it recovered, and became 

 as productive as before, yielding-, on a thin soil, about a load 

 and a half; whilst another patch, dressed partly with soot, 

 became so weak as to be scarcely worth mowing. Its dura- 

 bility, when applied to lucerne, has been found to produce 

 very fine crops during five years ; when the natural grasses 

 appearing to gain ground, five bushels more per acre were 

 again laid on, which forced such a smothering crop, that the 

 grass could no longer make head until after the third cutting, 

 when it afforded, with the last shoot of the lucerne, a very fine 

 crop of rowen. Although much difference is observable in the 

 results of the various experiments which have been recorded 

 respecting the effects of gypsum on artificial grasses, yet there 

 are none with which we are acquainted, in which its application 

 has not been successful when applied as a top-dressing to the 

 plants, conducted with due precaution, and not deranged by 

 violent rain, or other accidents arising from the weather. In 

 this we are borne out by the testimony of Dr. Fothergill, of 

 Philadelphia, as well as by that of several eminent American 

 farmers, mentioned by Mr. Parkinson, and supported by the 

 more recent treatises on the subject, written by Mr. Russell, 

 and Professor V. Thaer. We, therefore, do not hesitate to re- 

 commend it as an effectual means of promoting their growth, 

 and more especially that of red clover, provided the soil 

 be at the same time tolerably covered with plants ; though, in 

 confining that opinion to top-dressings applied to the leaves, 

 as being the most decidedly effectual mode, yet, as there are 

 numberless instances of its success when drilled along with 

 the seed, we do not mean to preclude its being laid upon the 

 land at the time of sowing. 



The trials which have been hitherto made of its application 

 to corn crops seem to prove that it does not operate directly 

 on grain ; but they are unanimous in showing that the stub- 

 ble of a clover-ley which has been manured with gypsum, 

 when afterwards ploughed up, produces a far better crop — 

 especially of wheat — than when it had been omitted. There 

 is, however, strong reason to suppose that this should be rather % 

 ascribed to the luxuriance of the clover — no matter in what 

 way that may have been occasioned — than to the direct appli- 

 cation of the gypsum; for it is well known that crops of wheat, 

 and indeed of most grain, always succeed in proportion to the 

 growth of the previous clover, which is not improl)a.bly occa- 

 sioned by its keeping the ground moist, and preventing- its 

 bl2 



