«48 On Plaister of Paris. 
a very extraordinary effect, but has not been repeat- 
ed on distant fields that never have been dunged, its 
effects were wonderful, considering the state they were 
in; one of the fields was sown with clover on the wheat 
and not exceeding two and an half bushels of plaister 
per acre, in March, 1794, on which I had upwards of 
forty cattle upwards of two weeks in the beginning of 
last May; then inclosed it for mowing, and mowed it in. 
the latter end of June and the beginning of July last, 
from which I had upwards of one tun per acre. This 
field without the plaister or clover seed, would not have 
produced pasture worth inclosing. It has been under 
cultivation in turn near or quite one hundred years.* 
Here suffer me to express my utter astonishment 
and inability to account in what manner so small a quan- 
tity of matter of any kind should have so wonderful a 
power of promoting vegetation as appears in the above 
cases. Thy English author speaks of virgin earth being 
the most agreeable to plaister, it is likely it may. Land 
over poor appears most certain of being improved by it. 
It may be observed, that all my land, and indeed all in 
the state, was in a virgin state as to that kind of manure. 
* Here is a strong instance of plaister on old cleared fields, 
without dung. Mr. Sellers’s is one of the oldest settlements 
in the state. Ivery much doubt the theory of this English au- 
thor ; especially as it respects virgin earth. No doubt it will 
operate wonderfully on new land (which does not require it) 
because of the vegetable matter in it, but it is on thzs matter, 
and not the earth, that it works. But see at the end, an in- 
stance where plaister had no effect on new land. 
: he 2 
September, 1810. 
