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retain moisture, in the driest seasons, when there is not 
the least appearance -of it in those beds whereon no 
plaister was strewed. If water be, according to an old/ ) 
as well as modern opinion, ‘‘ almost all in all,” in the 
food of ~vegetables, the plaister attracts, or retains, — 
abundant supplies. (7m) 
Ido not like the plaister ground too fine. It flies 
away in strewing, and is not so durable as that moderate- 
ly pulverized. 1 think it sufficiently fine, if it be ground 
so as to produce twenty bushels to the tun. It is most 
common now, to make twenty-four or twenty-five bush- 
elsofatun.(n) I have endeavoured to prevent the finer 
é 
(1) Lord Bacon. 
(m) Ingenhausz is of opinion, that water is only a vehicle 
of the food of plants, and by no means the true nourishment 
ef animals or vegetables,—the less so, as several plants can 
live without being in contact with water. Essay on the 
food of plants, page 1. But Chaptal thinks water so essential, 
that he says, (page 448, Philadelphia edition) “ A plant 
cannot vegetate without the assistance of water ; and that it 
is the only aliment the root draws from the earth.” 
(n) As a caution to farmers, I mention, that, at a late trial © 
of a cause in Bucks, between the buyer and seller of a horse, 
it appeared in evidence, that, after his death, several stones, 
weighing in the whole 15 pounds (one of them 7 pounds) 
were found in the rectum and other viscera of that animal ; 
and these were said to have occasioned his death. In ano- 
ther instance (in the neighbourhood) of the death ofa horse, 
17 pounds weight oi similar stones were found in his  intes- 
tines. The proprietors o these horses had their horse-feed, 
for a length of time, chopped at a mill wher _plaister was 
ground ; and the grain for horse feed chopped by the same 
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