76 On Gypsum. 
both as to this experiment, and also as to the efficacy of © 
plaister. he trial corn field produced double its cus- 
tomary crop. Near 300 acres in corn on my farm, not 
twenty of which were manured, almost averaged thirty 
bushels. A double crop also. But I shall record and 
transmit to you the result of a more complete trial. In 
the mean time, Mr. Roberts’s experiment* so accurately 
accords with my observations and hopes, that it affords 
me much encouragement. 
The progress you are making in the improvement of 
sheep, is at present the first object of public interest, but 
it will not be speedily, if at all, that the country below 
the mountains south of the Susquehannah will rival you. 
We have here neither buyers nor manufacturers of 
wool, (the household excepted) of any moment. Its 
usual price is about 17 cents, and we cannot grow it in 
our dry climate on exhausted lands, at less than double 
the price you can afford it at. These considerations shew 
you that success does not yet appear to us through the 
magnifying end of the telescope. 
The perusal of Judge Peters’s letter has afforded me 
great pleasure. 
Of sundry suggestions in his letter I shall certainly 
avail myself. As to afew, my doubts remain. The 
maxim ‘‘the more cattle, the more grass” may be 
thus conjugated. ‘‘ Cattle produce grass—grass produ- 
ces cattlke—and cattle will subsist men; and so the sys« 
* A mode pursued by Job Roberts, on a particular worn 
out field, had been stated to Mr. Taylor.—See Robert’s Penn- 
sylvania Farmer, page 208. 
J. M. 
