1917. 
THE CULTIVATOR 
221 
bread! bread! with an eloquence and earnestness that 
fiends themselves could not deny, were it in their power 
to give, is far more terrible than the surgeon’s knife 
when experienced in all its reality. This modern dis¬ 
covery of the effects of gypsum in fixing ammonia, is to 
the human race what u Letheon ” is to the afflicted. 
They must both be properly used, and the results are 
alike most wonderful and valuable. 
By direct experiments, it is found that 4 lbs. of rain 
water, contain one grain of ammonia. Now, take the 
four months of April, May, June, and July, and accord¬ 
ing to experiments made by Schubler, there would fall, 
ordinarily upon one acre, about 60,540 tons of rain wa¬ 
ter. This would give us ammonia enough, could it all 
be made fixed in the soil, to yield about 45 lbs. of ni¬ 
trogen, which is as much as is contained in 2| tons of 
hay, but not as much as would be contained in the 
straw, seed, and roots of some kinds of grain that 
might be raised on an acre, though more than would be 
necessary for what is often produced. Hence the rea¬ 
son why gypsum is more valuable for grass when used 
alone, than for grain. Soils, abundant in all the alka¬ 
lies necessary for the vigorous growth of grain, would 
need more nitrogen than is contained in the ammonia of 
rain water. Chemistry points to the liquid excrements 
of animals as the most ready means to supply it. From 
the fermentation and decomposition of these substances, 
carbonate of ammonia is generated, and the ammonia 
should be fixed to the soil by all the means within our 
power; the readiest of which, perhaps, are gypsum and 
charcoal. The office of charcoal is two fold. Firstly, 
by supplying carbon to plants, in the carbonic acid ab¬ 
sorbed from the atmosphere, and secondly, by con¬ 
densing ammoniacal gas within its pores, which is easily 
separated by plants and appropriated to their use when 
the ground is moist. Decayed wood is nearly like char¬ 
coal ; hence the value of decaying woody fibre, in the 
shape of what is called humus, peat, &c., though peat 
contains decaying animal matters in conjunction with 
woody fibre, and thus is more valuable still as a fertili¬ 
zer to many soils. 
There has much been said as to the effects of gypsum 
upon soils, when used for a series of years in succession, 
as to a tendency to exhaust them. How gypsum may 
do good . I have shown above. I may, at some future 
time, say more upon gypsum, and some other things, if 
the pages of the Cultivator should be no more profita¬ 
bly employed. Spalding. 
Rouse’s Point, N. Y., April 6, 1847. 
[A communication on the above subject, received sub¬ 
sequently to the foregoing, will be given next month 
! Eds.] 
AGRICULTURE AND RURAL ECONOMY OF EUROPE. 
LETTERS FROM PROF. NORTON. 
TJtrecht, Netherlands, May 15, 1847. 
Messrs. Editors —Since my last, everything in the 
vegetable world has been almost without change until 
the last week or ten days, during which the w r eather 
has been warm and springlike. The development of 
vegetation within this period has been extremely rapid, 
more like that of a colder climate, than is usual here. 
The various grain crops are coming forward rapidly, 
and we are now better able to judge of the prospect for 
the ensuing harvest. The autumn sown grain seems 
generally in this, and I am informed over other large 
districts, to have suffered from the winter, the crowns 
of. the ridges being sometimes almost entirely bare. 
The color, however, is green and healthy. The spring 
sown grain almost universally appears extremely flou¬ 
rishing. 
I have been much pleased in the course of a walk to¬ 
day, with the appearance of the pastures; they present 
a deep living green, and a closeness of herbage that I 
have rarely seen equalled. It is only, however, within 
the last two weeks that they have been in a condition 
to save the remainder of the farmers’ hay ricks. The 
cows are now in the spring, turned into their pastures 
without the jackets in which they were universally 
clothed during the autumn. I got a look into a dairy 
farmer’s cow stable a few days since. The cows all 
stood with their heads inward, and a passage behind. 
There seemed to be no manger, in fact nothing in front 
but upright sticks, curved a little in the middle, so that 
the animal could pass its head between them and eat 
from the ground. They were placed almost as closely 
together as they could stand. The barns are generally 
of brick, with low walls and high steep thatched roofs. 
The houses on the exterior are of much the same model, 
but smaller in size, and the two are frequently in closer 
contact than would please our farmers. 
It is considered here a distinguished mark, or rather 
presage of good fortune, if a pair of storks choose to 
locate themselves on the chimney of a person’s house. 
These singular birds almost always build upon the tops 
of chimneys. I saw one chimney upon which an old 
cart wheel had been placed, both for the convenience 
of a pair of these birds of good omen, and in order that 
the draught of the chimney might not be stopped. 
Upon this cart wheel they had collected an immense 
mass of sticks and grass, certainly a foot in thickness. 
Much trouble is taken to collect manure, and materi¬ 
als for forming composts; the ditches are carefully 
cleaned in spring and autumn, and large quantities of 
excellent materials for the latter purpose obtained. 
But by a singular inconsistency, these heaps, gathered 
by so much toil, are frequently placed upon the very 
borders of ditches, where the liquid drains away. I 
saw this morning a beautifully made heap of manure, 
30 or 40 loads, arranged on a flagged slope, leading 
from thb back of a barn down to a ditch of about six 
feet' wide, filled with water in which was a slow cur¬ 
rent; this water -was colored almost black by the drain¬ 
ings of the heap, thus conveying away certainly a fourth 
part, if not a third, of its value. 
The small cross roads here are as bad as our own, 
being almost impassable in spring. In Friesland, where 
the soil is clay, all of the travelling at this season is 
done on the canals. 
I have been favored to-day with a sight of 15 or 20 
of the swinish tenants of the Dutch farm-yards. I do 
not pretend to much learning in this branch of know¬ 
ledge, but I instantly recognized a likeness, which I 
think I have seen in your paper, of an animal usually 
called a hog, but which your correspondent insisted 
upon naming a landpike. They were all legs, and head, 
and ears, and tail, and hair. The back approached a 
semicircle, with a row of bristles like the back fin of a 
roach or perch; the lower line of the body followed in 
some degree the line of the back, being somewhat con¬ 
tracted in the middle; the hams and shoulders were 
merely slightly enlarged continuations of the lower por¬ 
tions of the legs. The idea of fat, in connection with 
