The Sumter banner. [volume] (Sumterville, S.C.) 1846-1855, 1849-04-11
fi n 'siSf s,y5.l a.
a9rifnltural.
GYPsUhI--PLASTER OF PARIS

This fertilizer has been constantly
used in this country for sixty FIVE years.
In alletter to- Sir John Sinclair from
President Washington, hearing sa.ate
"Philadelphia,l July IL, 1896" we
learn that the illnstrious farmer of
Mount v Vernon had used French gypsum
nine years. Judge Peters of Phila-
delphia, DR.. Muhlenberg of Lancaster,
and many others tested Its fer.ilizing
power soon after the close Of the war
of the revolution. DR.! Muhlenberg
states in o letter to DR.. Samuel Nit Nit
chill. written il May, 179s, that "gyp-
sum has he'd many. fair trials in our
noighborhood, and on d,y poor lands,
has always answered our expectation"
a history Of the first discovery, of
this mineral, the remarkable and pro-
longed disputes which it gave rise to,
and dSof its use in the United States,
would make q capital seven-pence novel.
Our experience and observation in
its application to grasses. grains, pota-
toes and garden vegetables, began in
1915, and come down to the present.
Gypsum yields both sulphur and lime
to cultivated plants. These are indis-
pensible constituents in their compost
tion, and are deficient in most soils, in
an available form. The sulphur in this
fertilizer is more important than the
lime; although both are often highly
beneficial in feeding and organizing
crops. Allleguminous and cruciferous
plants, (the Pea, bean and cabbage
tribes). 1sume o good deal of sulphur
in growing. Glover, wheat, oats, bar
ly,corn, cotton and potatoes consume
q little smaller per centage of sulphur,
but still require more than poor soils
usually contain.
Plaster Of Paris always fails on land
that lacks potash, phosphorus, soda,
soluble silicat, chlorine, aud magnesia,
as well as lime and sulphur. To RENE
dythis defect one should mix wood
ashes with gypsum in the proportion of
two parts of the former to one of the
latter. Our practice is to use SO pounds
Of common salt, 100 gypsum, and 200
dry nnleached ashes, on On acre of corn,
potatoes, peas and other crops. A
table spoon full Of this compound to a
bill of corn or potatoes, is sufficient. if
spread out over the hill at the first
hoeing. Dews and rains will dissolve
thelseyeral salts, and they will descend
about the needy roots Of the plants.
The theory is, that nature demands the
elements which form tho ash of the
plant, (if it should be burnt when ma
tura9 to organize the same. The soil
viii have enough limo, sulphur, phos.
phorus. potash chlorine, magnesia and
coda, to yield q small, but nos large
crop.
The time has gone BY when q sensi-
bic man. will undertake to form some
thing out Of nothing by dint of hard
work. .ta n. .l,t a D .4. R
If nature requires in the food of a
bird, q little lime, out of which to make
the shell Of her egg, little sulphur to
form itsg gyolk, a little phosphorus to
4 build up the tiny bones and nerves of
its chick, and alitsle organized nitrogen
to make its muscles, no reasoning per. b
son will ask the bird to form q she'll out
of flint instead Of lime; nor to substitute
charcoal for sulphur in making tho yolk
gof an egg, nor iron for phosphorus in
: making bones, brain and nerves, nor
3leadsfop nitrogen in organizing muscles.
1t not only consumes something to make
something, but in forming living beings
like vegetables and animals, it IS indis,