On Plaister of Paris. 49 
Query 1. How long have you used plaister? « 
Answer. I have answered it in the foregoing. 
Query 2. What state or condition was your land in 
when you began the use of it? 
Answer. Before I used the plaister my land was full 
of twitch, or what is called blue grass, which afforded 
little pasture, scarcely sufficient to fatten cattle for my 
own use; since the use of it for several years back, Ll 
have fattened from forty to fifty each year, besides 
mowing as muchtoff the fields each year as afforded a 
sufficiency of hay for my team and family horses, and 
upwards of twenty cattle ; before that my dependance 
for hay was from bottoms and watered banks, the hay 
from which was very inferior to that from the fields. 
Query 3. What quantity per acre have you general- 
ly used. 
Answer. For several years I used between four and 
five bushels per acre, but the two last-years not more 
than two or two and an half per acre. ’ 
Query 4. What soils are most proper for this manure? 
Answer. A soil too light and sandy, or clay, I think 
unfavourable, and that called loam, not over stiff, most 
favourable.* 
*T had been informed of several instances of'plaister being beneficial to clay. But in every 
ease I inquired into, I found the clay completely drained, by being thrown up in high ridges; and 
all its moisture evaporated, or drawn off. See Mr. Young’s excellent mode of ameliorating clay- 
soils; Agricultural Memoirs, vol. 2, page 186. This not only changes the texture and nature of the 
soil; but adds the vegetable pabulum for plaster, or lime. Mr. Young’s meritorious perseverance, 
in this new and successful experiment, has earned the thanks of all farmers of such ungrateful 
soils. I have seen indications of the fact, and have been informed, that the vitriolic acid of the 
plaister on wet clay, has thrown up a concrete (alum) on the surface, like a hear frost. 
R. P. 
Sept ember 1810: 
Q 
