Proceedings of the Farmers' Club. 455 



amount will act. Thus a bushel to the acre, sown upon a clover 

 field, acts as well as fifty bushels — showing that it does not act as a 

 manure, as a stimulant, or a gastric juice, or in any other manner 

 analogous to any of these agencies. Sow a field with plaster in 

 clover, or any other grass, leaving out a breadth, or in plastering a 

 crop of tobacco — as I have frequently seen it done — leave a few rows 

 without the application, and the result will be that, while the parts 

 of the crop to which the plaster is applied will be flourishing and 

 green, those on which no plaster is put will be yellow and worth- 

 less, indeed greatly inferior to what they would have been bad no 

 plaster been placed in the adjacent parts of the field. How can this 

 be explained except upon the hypothesis that the plaster draws from 

 the atmosphere passing over it a part of its fertilizing properties and 

 retains it for the use of the plants in proximity to it, while those 

 portions where there is no plaster do not thus derive this greater 

 share from the atmosphere ? Again, sow upon a dunghill, streaming 

 and giving off ammonia, a quantity of plaster ; enough — it will stop 

 the escape of the gas. Wait awhile, until the plaster sown becomes 

 saturated with the gas, and it will again begin to escape. Put on 

 plaster again, and it will stop; and so on until all the ammonia is 

 taken up and fixed. 



Take Peruvian guano, whose great fertilizing property is ammonia 

 — mix plaster with it in proper quantity, and it will become inodor- 

 ous. And so of any other animal or vegetable manure which gives 

 off ammonia. 



Great losses are sustained in stables, in cesspools, in all animal and 

 vegetable manures by the escape of ammonia, which constitutes by 

 far the richest part of all manures. Gypsum may be most 

 profitably employed in fixing this volatile and most valuable ingredi- 

 ent, to the great profit of the former and of the public. 



Using Ashes and Spreading Manure. 



Mr. S. W. Quale, Linden, N. Y. — I have a quantity of unleached 

 ashes. Shall I apply to my wheat field, which is rather poor ? If 

 so, where and liow ? I have an underground stable, 35 x 45, in 

 which I keep cows. I throw the manure on a shed and draw it out, 

 and spread it on grass lands as it is made. I intend to put the land 

 in corn in the spring. I treated a piece so last year ; plowed it 

 about four inches deep, and had a good crop. Is this the best time 

 and way to apply the manure ? 



Mr. John Crane — He should spread ashes broadcast over his land 



