The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1870-05-20
Sg9isGel1a W..
Commercial Fertilizers-Gypsurn.

Prices vary so widely in different 10.
calities that no fertilizer can be pronounced
everywhere cheapest or best worth buying
and yet doubt that there is a rood of our
country's surface in fit condition to be cul-
tivated to which Gypsum plaster of Paris
might not be applied with profit. Where
1T costs $40 or over per ton, l would apply
it sparingly-say, one bushel per acre
while judge three bushels per acre none
too much in regions where it may be bought
much cheaper. Even the poor man who
has but one cow should buy barrel of it,
and dust his stable Herewith after clean
ing it each day. He who has stock of
cattle should never be without it, and
should freely use it, alike in stable and
yard, to keep down the noisome odors and
thus retain the volatile elements of the
manure. Every meadow, every pasture,
should be sown with it at least triennially !;
where it is abundant and cheap as in Cen
trail New York, would apply it each
year, unless careful observation should
satisfy me that it no longer subserved
good purpose.
As to the time of application, while l
judge any season will do, my present i'm
preston is that it will do most good if ap-
piled when the Summer is hottest and the
ground dryest, If for instance, you close
your haying in mid Summer, having been
hurried by the rapid ripening of the grass,
and find your meadows baked and crack
ed by the intense heat, reckon that you
may proceed to dust your meadows with
Gypsum with moral certainty that none
of it will be wasted. So if your Corn and
other fall crops are suffering from and
likely to be stunted by drouth, advise the
application of Gypsum broadcast, as evenly
as may be and as bounteously as its price
and your means will allow. l do not be-
lieve it so well to apply it specially to the
growing stalks, spoonful or so per hill :;
and l doubt that it is ever judicious to
plant it in the hill with the Seed The
readiest and quickest mode of application
is also, believe, the best.
How Gypsum impels and invigorates
vegetable growth, / do not pretend to
know but that it does so was demonstra-
ted by Nature long before Manstook the
hint that she freely gave. The city of
Paris and considerable adjacent district
rest on bed of Gypsum, ranging from five
to twenty feet below the surface, and con-
siderably disintegrated ip its upper por-
IlOu ny Iue uCJlOu Vi WdlcT. HIS re-
gion produces Wheat most luxuriantly, and
presume has done so from time immemo-
rial. At length, it crawled through the
hair of the tllers of this soil that the sub
stance which did so much good fortuitous-
ly, and Gas it were) because it could not
do otherwise, might do still more if ap.
piled to the soil, with deliberate intent to
test its value as fertilizer. The result,
we all understand.
Gypsum is chemical compound of Sui
phur and Lime-so much is agreed and
the theory of chemists has been that, as
the winds pass over surface sown with it,
the Ammonia which has been exhaled by
thousand barn. yards, boys, &C., having
a stronger affinity for Sulphur than Lime
has, dissolves the Gypsum, combines with
the Sulphur, forming Sulphate of Ammo
mia, and leaves the Lime to get on as it
may. l accept this theory, having no
reason to distrust it; and, knowing that