120 A PRACTICAL TREATISE 



exhalation by the sun. We have, indeed, heard some recent 

 instances of its having been used as a top-dressing to wheat in 

 the spring — in some cases with great success, and in others 

 without any apparent effect; but this may perhaps be not un- 

 justly attributed to its having fallen, in the former case, upon 

 the shoots when they had been moistened by the dew, which 

 thus enabled them to retain the powder, and in the latter, by 

 its having been either washed off by rain, or dispelled by the 

 winds. 



Its direct effect upon crops of pulse has not been sufficiently 

 ascertained to enable us to speak of it with precision. Peas, 

 indeed, have been known to succeed wonderfully after sainfoin 

 which had been previously manured with gypsum, but they 

 generally flourish in chalky soil, in which sainfoin is also com- 

 monly sown. It has, however, been remarked that both peas 

 and beans frequently become hard in boiling, which has been 

 attributed to the temperature of peculiar seasons, and, above 

 all, to rain, which has impeded the usual course of harvest; 

 this, however, has been found to be a mistake, for it has been 

 shown that this defect is due either to the soil being naturally 

 impregnated with gypsum, or to its having been laid upon the 

 land as manure. As an instance both of its effect and of the 

 prejudice which many people entertain against it as a manure, 

 an anecdote has been related of a gentleman who, having re- 

 commended its use, ordered his servant to spread a small quan- 

 tity of it secretly upon an adjoining piece of sainfoin, belonging 

 to an old farmer who vehemently decried it. The crop proved 

 surprisingly abundant on that spot to which the gypsum had 

 been applied; but upon discovering its occasion, the old man, 

 instead of profiting by the circumstance, grew peevish, and 

 wondered why his neighbour should have taken the liberty of 

 spreading tiiis new-fangled manure over his sainfoin, which, 

 for aught he knew, might do more harm than good. The 

 laugh, however, going against him, he determined to get rid 

 of it by breaking up the sainfoin and sowing peas; wlion, 

 beliold ! they also rose in judgment against him so evidently 

 on the gypsumed part, that he was constrained, though re- 

 luctantly, to acknowledge that ' it seemed good stuff:' yet he 

 was never afterwards known to lay a bushel of it upon his 

 farm. 



Of its power, when applied to bulbous roots, the accounts 

 are equally deficient; except, indeed, that Mr. Parkinson has 

 furnished different statements of its application, on his own 



