Gypsum as a Manure to Artificial Grasses. 109 



One of the chief reasons why gypsum has not been universally 

 employed by all cultivators of the artificial grasses arises perhaps 

 from the fact that many good soils naturally contain sulphate of 

 lime in sufficient abundance for the service of the plant ; and, in 

 consequence^, to such lands the application of gypsum is useless — 

 it is an attempt to supply a deficiency which does not exist. 

 I have invariably found in those soils to which gypsum is not a 

 manure an abundance of this salt. It is not, however, necessary 

 for the farmer to have his soil analysed to determine the probable 

 advantages of applying gypsum to his clover and other grasses ; 

 there are several easy observations which will readily indicate to 

 him the nature of the case : thus^ when he finds that those fields 

 which once produced luxuriant crops of red clover or saintfoin^ 

 will no longer yield them in abundance ; if he notices that the 

 young plants spring up very numerously, but die away as the 

 summer advances ; if he finds that his fields will only grow clover 

 successfully once in eight or twelve years, and that his neigbours 

 tell him his land is tired of clover, or clover-sick ; if he notices 

 that even the application of farm -yard compost hardly adds to the 

 luxuriance of his grasses; he may then safely conclude that his 

 crops have gradually exhausted his land of sulphate of lime ; and 

 he may, with every confidence of success, apply a dressing of 

 gypsum, at the rate of 2 cwt. per acre, taking care to choose a 

 wet morning for the application ; and this may be done at any 

 season of the year, but it is best either in April or the first days 

 of May. These facts I can attest from the results of my own 

 observations and experience. In an old grass paddock, of about 

 70 acres, in the vale of Kennett, in Berkshire, the grass had for 

 many years gradually become less and less productive, and this 

 in spite of all kinds of applications : the earths (such as clay and 

 chalk), farm-yard compost, 8cc., had been liberally and repeatedly 

 spread, without producing anything like a luxuriant crop : but it 

 was found at last that the peat-ashes of the banks of the Kennett, 

 when spread at the rate of about 40 bushels per acre, produced 

 the very best results — an excellent crop, both in weight and in 

 colour ; certainly more than a ton of hay per acre beyond what 

 the soil yielded before. The fact was now evident that it was 

 gypsum that the soil needed ; for as these peat-ashes contain about 

 12 per cent, of sulphate of lime, more than 2 cwt. of gypsum was 

 conveyed into the land in them : it constitutes, in fact, by far the 

 chief fertilizing ingredient in these peat-ashes; the remainder 

 being about 40 per cent, of sand, and the rest chalk, red oxide of 

 iron, and a small quantity of common salt. 



If this conclusion, therefore, was correct as to the gypsum 

 being the only valuable portion of the peat-ashes, it was certain 

 that an application of 2 cwt. per acre of gypsum to the same land 

 would produce similar beneficial results: and, upon a trial, it 



