60 On Gypswn. 



foot clover died, and a crop of crab grass shot up 

 through it, and furnished a second cover to the land. 



1807 and 1808. In these two years all my corn ground 

 as it was broken up or listed has been plaistered broad- 

 cast, with from three pecks to a bushel to the acre, and 

 directly ploughed in, and both the seed corn and seed 

 wheat have been rolled bushel to bushel. In both, the 

 crops have greatly exceeded what the fields have ever 

 before produced. That cultivated last year has doubled 

 any former product. But they have been aided in spots 

 with manure, and the years were uncommonly fruitful. 

 AH the manure carried out in these two years has been 

 sprinkled with plaister when spread before being plough- 

 ed in, and several fields of the bird-foot clover have been 

 plaistered. The results conform to those already men- 

 tioned. 



1808, February. Plaistered four ridges of highland 

 meadow oat at a bushel to the acre. No effect. 



Some of the inferences I make from these experiments 

 are, that gypsum should be worked into the earth ; that 

 half a bushel or less to an acre, worked in, will im- 

 prove land considerably ; that drought can defeat its ef- 

 fects upon corn, but not upon the land, if it is covered; 

 that the weather is of no consequence at the moment it 

 is sown, though the subsequent season is of great ; that 

 it may vastly improve red clover even as late as May ; 

 that it increases the effects of coarse manure ; that a 

 quantity less than half a bushel to an acre, is in some 

 cases as effectual, as a much larger one; that excessive 

 moisture or excessive drought destroys its effect ; that 

 its effect is more likely to be destroyed, when sprinkled 

 irsn the surface, than when mixed ^vith the earth ; that 



