THE FARMERS' REGISTER. 



271 



ready ground for use, al 812^ per ton, the farmer I 

 taking it away in his own vessels, or at S14 bar- j 

 relied up, or thai it can be got up in the lump, 

 at 9 or 10 dollars, and pounded, (the comparative 

 benefits of which are in a course of experiment 

 by our worthy president, and others near us, the I 

 results of whose experience we shall doubllcs- 

 soon know,) we express it as our opinion that 

 half a bushel or a bushel per acre, prepared in 

 either way, and judiciously applied, is of more 

 benefit to the land and the crop than five times 

 the same quantity of any other manure within 

 our knowledge. To realize all its advantages 

 it must be applied to a clover crop very soon afier 

 the removal of the crop of wheat or oats, or the 

 following spring, or both, (February or March is 

 (he best time lor applying it the second year,) 

 that is, where the clover is the crop for the benefit 

 of which the plaster is used, — or to a clover lay 

 about to be turned in as a manure for some other 

 crop, — or to a coat of vegetable matter or coaree 

 manure about to be ploughed in for the same pur- 

 pose, — or on checks or drills of manure, espe- 

 cially of coarse manure, on which you are about 

 to hill or bed the land for a crop. The application 

 of it first recommended would, we are persuaded, 

 save many a field of young clover which perishes, 

 in dry seasons, from its sudden exposure to the 

 hot summer sun, after the removal of the crop of 

 small grain which had protected it during the ear- 

 lier part of the season. We regret that we have 

 no experience of our own to adduce on this branch 

 of our subject ; but we learn through one of our 

 body, in habits of intercourse with the farmers on 

 James river, below Richmond and Petersburg, 

 that such is the practice with some of them, and 

 with marked improvement of the clover and the 

 land. We add that, admitting its benefit to clo- 

 ver at all, (on which surely we are all agreed,) this 

 conclusion, we should think, would address itself 

 at once to the understanding, too powerfully to be 

 resisted. A practical farmer, of no ordinary 

 merit, in an adjoining county, mixes his plaster 

 with his clover seed when sowing, in the propor- 

 tion of a bushel of the former to a gallon of the 

 latter, with the same result. A question has 

 been started whether its application to wheat at 

 that stage, may not increase its tendency to rust. 

 We merely throw out the idea to set wiser heads 

 to thinking, without expressing an opinion upon 

 ii. If aught, however, which may add to the 

 eap of the wheat, when there is danger of redun- 

 dancy, and consequent danger of rust, should be 

 avoided, then it is worthy of some consideration, 

 especially when the wheat crop has, for years, 

 been so precarious, and more perhaps from rust 

 than any other cause. And if the clover and the 

 land can get the full benefit, and an injury to the 

 wheat be avoided at the same time by sowing the 

 plaster after harvest, rather than with the clover 

 seed, certainly it should be done.* 



* Since the foregoing part of this report was writ- 

 ten we have conversed with an intelligent planter and 

 farmer of this society who insists that the chief dan- 

 ger to the young clover arises from the great draught 

 on the land by the wheat crop from April to the time of 

 its maturing, and that therefore the best time to sow 

 plaster to obviate if is in April. And, in the single 

 instance in which he tried it, he thought the clever 

 greatly benefited, and that the wheat received no 

 injury. 



2dly. On clover the second spring. This being 

 the universal and.approved practice, where clover 

 is plastered at all, it needs but a passing remark 

 or two. in vain do we sow plaster, if we tread 

 or graze our clover the same winter or spring. 

 Not a hoof should go on it after November. 

 Nay, we doubt wheiher, if it couid be avoided, 

 our young clover should be grazed at all. But 

 we will glean our fields of the scattered wheat 

 and oats ; and it would be darting straws against 

 the wind to argue against it. Some judicious 

 James river farmers, it is true, recommend thai it 

 should be grazed the first summer and fall to 

 cleanse it of weeds, especially the stick weed. 

 It is very questionable, however, in the opinion 

 of your committee, whether, upon our drier lands 

 this should be done, except, as before intimated, 

 it will be very sure to be done " riyht or wrong." 

 But when we have gleaned our fields, if we 

 would preserve our clover, or profit by it, and at 

 any event by or after November we must provide 

 pasturage for our stock elsewhere. But what, it 

 may be asked, has this to do with plaster? Much 

 every way. We are required to report on the 

 time and manner of applying it. We answer, 

 in this connexion, sow it on young clover in the 

 spring, not trodden or grazed since the preceding 

 November, for a crop of clover. If you first 

 lighten the soil with a thin, sharp coulter, (sup- 

 posing it at all close,) you would perhaps do well. 

 February is the best month lor applying the 

 plaster; March will do, but not as well. 



Srdly. Apply it, half to one bushel per acre, to 

 a clover lay, to turn in lor the benefit of some 

 other crop. Many planters, it is believed, keep 

 up their tobacco lots in this way, wiihout deterio- 

 ration, with a rotation of tobacco, wheat and clo- 

 ver. This, in a tobacco district, is perhaps the 

 most profitable use to which plaster can be ap- 

 plied : and in the spring for tobacco, as late aa 

 April, or even May ; (or corn, as late as March, 

 or Ist of April. In one instance known to your 

 committee the present year, a clover lot was thus 

 preparec} lor tobacco as late as the 2l8t of June ; 

 and the crop compares advantageously with lots 

 highly manured from the stable and farm-pen. 

 In another instance, where a luxuriant growth of 

 clover was turned in late in February and early 

 in March, without the second plastering, but well 

 plastered the spring preceding, a very heavy crop 

 of tobacco, and of superior quality, is the result. 

 The land has undergone a pretty severe course 

 of cropping since it was cleared, some 9 years 

 ago, viz. : three crops of tobacco, then wheat, clo- 

 ver and tobacco twice ; and has been fully kept 

 up to its original fertility, if not improved, by this 

 system of clovering and plastering. Nay, it is 

 believed that the tobacco crop on it this year is 

 the best it has ever produced. These, with many 

 other instances which might be adduced, within 

 our own experience and observation, as well as 

 upon the information of others, convince us that 

 the spring fallowing of clover land, intended for 

 a hoe crop, is better than fall fallowing. But if 

 the planter has more of it than he can do in the 

 spring, or deems it unsafe to defer so much of his 

 ploughing to such a late period, his clover lots in- 

 tended for tobacco, at least, should be broken up 

 in the spring, with the previous dressing of plas- 

 ter recommended. The second instance, above 

 referred to, goes far to prove the continuing be- 



