432 Transactions of the American Institute. 



While plaster is an excellent fertilizer, without doubt, I think it 

 is not certain that the stimulating power it exerts upon the clover, 

 and through it upon the grain crop, is because of the sulphuric acid 

 which it contains, so much as of this latter agent's affinity for the 

 water contained in the atmosphere, which sulphuric acid is known 

 to attract more powerfully than any of the other mineral acids. 

 I so reason, because there is really less than two per cent of 

 it in clover hay, 1.85, while there is more than twenty-two per 

 cent of lime, which is the base of plaster — 22.62 being the propor- 

 tion of lime found in it. And I raise the question here, whether 

 by relying on the clover obtaining sufficient of the constituents of 

 sulphuric acid from the atmosphere and earth, the powdered lime- 

 stone uuburnt (carbonate of lime), or slacked burnt lime, if sown 

 upon clover instead of the plaster, would not, in very wet seasons, 

 supersede the obtention of sulphuric acid from the gypsum. If 

 so, what would seem to settle the question of the modus operandi 

 of this valuable companion and assistant of the great fertilizer 

 under consideration, without affecting its use, which I am very far 

 from desirino; to lessen. 



When the subject of red clover was up before the Farmers' Club 

 some time ago, the question was put to me: "Will it grow on all 

 kinds of lands, and in all parts of the country? " I answer now, 

 as I answered then, that it will grow on all uplands, as contradistin- 

 guished from wet meadow lands, or very sandy bottom lands, 

 except those where there is unmixed clay — timothy being more 

 appropriate for the exceptional soils named, because of its need of 

 a much larger quantity of silica, about thirty per cent more than 

 clover, while the latter is apt to be thrown out of wet land by the 

 frost, as timothy is not, although even it is liable to be " drowned 

 out," as the farmers phrase it, where there is much water, as in the 

 flat lands of New Jersey, for instance. But, to further and more 

 fully answer the question just quoted, I will state that I have seen 

 clover growing well on a great variety of soils, and in a great many 

 localities, including the once utterly worn-out and thrown-out slate 

 lands on both the Pennsylvania and Maryland sides of the Susque- 

 hanna, now so productive under the clovering and liming and plas- 

 tering system of culture, and also on both borders of the Ohio, 

 not forgetting the once apparently hopeless lands on both sides of 

 the Potomac, particularly in Prince George's and Montgomery 

 counties, in Maryland, and Fairfax county, in Virginia, so praise- 

 worthily rescued many years ago, in this way, by Nothern settlers, 



