188 On Oat Pasture, 
The Rockland farm, exhibited a subject for experi- 
ment, as it had not only been reduced by cropping, but 
generally, became a common for every animal, to take 
what remained of the scanty natural, but coarse her- 
bage : having read in various books the result of sow- 
ing plaister and clover, it was presumed, that sowing 
plaister and clover, would be the extent of the expen- 
ces, required to fertilize the fields, in a few years ;—a 
few experiments, proved that the plaister and clover 
seed were both lost, as no one could at any season of 
the year, point out what field, or upon what part of any 
field they had been deposited, unless where the briars 
and bushes had been eradicated. 
It should however have been mentioned, that the soil 
was generally a cold or heavy clay, some blue, white, 
light brown and a few spots of red clay, loaded with 
hard blue stone and rocks, chiefly quartz, mixed with 
iron, and copper. Some of the experiments were made 
with plaister, others were made by top dressing with 
lime, at the rate of twenty-five, to thirty bushels per 
acre: the lime was brought 20 or 25 miles from the 
kiln, and laid on the field at 25 cents per bushel: it 
was formed into a bed of about half a foot thick and 
covered with earth, ploughed and thrown over it, before 
it was slacked, that all the phosphoric principle disen- 
gaged by the water, might be united with the earth 
which covered it ; a heavy harrow was afterwards passed 
over it, so soon as the shell was reduced to powder ; 
the bed of lime and earth, was then frequently turned 
-by the plough and harrow, until the whole assumed, 
the appearance, and smell, of soapers ashes, containing 
about ten parts of common soil, to one of lime. It was 
