272 



THE FARMERS' REGISTER. 



nefit of the plaster after the first year; and is 

 only one of many going to establisii the same fact 

 and giving us assurance that its advantages are 

 not limited to a single year, or single crop, but 

 that, directly or indirectly, it imparts additional 

 ferliliiy to tlie land for years. 



4lhly. Apply it in the same mode and quantity 

 to any coat of vegetable matter, or coarse ma- 

 nure to be turned in (or a hoe crop. As facts 

 speak louder than mere speculation, we state that 

 one of your committee, some years ago, sowed 

 plaster on half rotted wheat straw, with which 

 he manured part of a tobacco lot, and gave the 

 remainder o<' the lot about the ordinary coat of 

 farm-pen and stable manure, without plaster, 

 the advantages of the diti'erent parts being, in all 

 other respects, about equal. The plastered part 

 was the best tobacco. The peculiarities of the 

 season are not now recollected. He would, by 

 no means, recommend this example to the imi- 

 tation of his brother planters : it was a last resort 

 in his case, his better manures being exhausted. 

 But what would probably have been the effect of 

 plastering the whole 1 



Another of your committee, in the year 1S36, 

 cleared up a piece of old-field pine land, set with 

 broom-straw, and other coarse grasses and 

 weeds, and partially covered with pine leaves. 

 The land was very poor. He took off only the 

 wood, and such coarse litter as could not be 

 ploughed in, sowed plaster in the spring, plough- 

 ed it in, and planted corn. The crop was a fine 

 one for the land, not less than 6 bushels to the 

 acre — while a part of the same land, left unplas- 

 tered for the sake of the comparison, yielded only 

 2| bushels to the acre. The same land now, 

 from the use of plaster and clover, yields 3 or 4 

 barrels to the acre. 



Another member of your committee sowed half 

 a bushel of plaster per acre, on part of a tobacco 

 lot late in April, which had been covered in Fe- 

 bruary by a heavy manuring on clover ; on an- 

 other part, having twice the quantity of manure, 

 but no clover, 1^- bushels. The clovered part 

 made the best tobacco. 



5thly. It would seem almost superfluous to 

 say that if plaster acts so kindly sown broad- 

 cast on such manures, it must act, with no less 

 effects, on hills or drills of the same. This per- 

 haps may be the more economical way of using 

 it, viz.: checking the land, where to be applied 

 in the hill, and depositing the manure and a 

 table-spoonful or two of plaster in the check, and 

 hilling on the check. Where to be drilled, make 

 a small furrow, deposite the manure, sow the plas- 

 ter on it, (as much per acre would be required in 

 this way, perhaps, as sowing broad-cast,) and 

 bed the land upon the drill. A very judicious 

 cultivator, a member of this society, being asked 

 by one of your committee, how his tobacco came 

 to be better than most of his neighbors', on land 

 apparently as good, and as well manured? What 

 secret he had, if any, in the preparation or ap- 

 plication of his manure'? Replied that he had 

 none, unless it was that he drilled his manure 

 altogether, and that not in ILirrows, but upon the 

 slightest perceptible line, or mark made with a 

 trowel-hoe, tlie ground being first well prepared ; 

 the advantage of which, he said, was to bring the 

 manure sooner to the nourishment of the young 

 plants, at the very stage that they most need it. 



He was not asked, whether he plasters those 

 drills of manure. Most probably he does, as he 

 uses the article to some extent. But whether he 

 does or not, it would no doubt improve the crop, 

 as well by bringing the manure sooner into 

 action, as by its own magic influence, and per- 

 haps the crop ol" small grain to follow, and the 

 land.* 



6thly. Rolling eeed-corn in plaster, or putting 

 a little in the hill when dropping the corn, sow- 

 ing it lightly on tobacco plants, in the bed or 

 patch, especially when they appear faded or sick- 

 ly, on plants in the hill at almost any stage, but 

 especiallyjudi after trimming down, and just on 

 the eve of a rain, if you can so time it, and soon 

 after topping, are modes of using it with which, 

 it is presumed, most planters are familiar, and the 

 advantages of which they generally appreciate. 



7lhly. It is recommended by respectable au- 

 thority, known to the committee, and by Liebig, 

 in his " Organic Chemistry," to use it in the 

 stable, farm-pen and manure bank, by mixing 

 a small quantity with the contents of the stalls, 

 pen or bank, to which it is said to give much 

 greater activity. While we have no experience 

 on this subject, this use of plaster commends itself 

 so powerfully to our reason, and is attended with 

 so little trouble and expense, that we think the 

 experiment worth trying. 



On the question " to what soils it is adapted 7" 

 we would say that, in our judgment, it is as well 

 adapted to the soil of Cumberland as any what- 

 ever. On light, gray land, the general cha- 

 racter of ours, where it has not been worn out, 

 with the least mixture of vegetable matter, it acts 

 like a charm. And even where such land is 

 pretty well exhausted, if it has a tolerable sub- 

 soil, it is perhaps more easily resuscitated than 

 any other, by the judicious use of clover, plaster 

 and manure. The red lands, stony lands, stiff 

 low-grounds, and creek and branch flats, general- 

 ly of vegetable mould, or made earth, as we 

 say in common parlance, and even pipe-clay 

 lands, which form the exceptions to the general 

 character of our soil, admit of the most profitable 

 use of plaster. It tells on clover, especially, grown 

 upon red land, as decidedly as on any other. 

 An opinion is prevalent with many, that it does 

 not act kindly on what we call pipe-clay lands, 

 and perhaps it does not as much so as on others. 

 But we are persuaded, that where it has failed 

 of a happy effect on such, or on any, it has been 

 more owing to the land not being well drained, 

 or destitute of any vegetable matter to help it 

 along, if we may so speak, than to any natural 

 incongruity between the land and the plaster. 

 It will not act on a mere caput raortuum, (naked 

 clay) or on sobbed land, however well supplied 

 with vegetable matter. But very striking effects 

 from it are seen on well drained low-grounds of 

 this very kind. The James river bottoms, for 

 example, have generally the subsoil, which gives 



* Since writing the above, one of your committee 

 has seen a gentleman who manures for tobacco in 

 this way, including the plaster, and who says that the 

 result is superior to that arising from nearly double 

 the quantity of manure spread in the usual way and 

 ploughed in. It cannot admit of any question, how- 

 ever,«that the latter would be better for the crops of 

 wheat and clover to follow. 



