PLASTER OF PARIS. 237 



place, of its effects, and from these, our premises, we 

 may then draw some general conckisions. 



We believe it to be now generally conceded that 

 plaster, on certain soils, has no sensible effect ; but it is 

 not so generally admitted that it is beneficial on any 

 soil. Many people who have tried it on certain lands, 

 and found no advantage in the use of it, are ready at 

 once to condemn it m toto^ and to discredit all they 

 may have heard in its favor. They come to conclu- 

 sions too hastily. They have not patience to make 

 repeated trials on soils differently constituted, and, be- 

 cause they did not find it to operate like common 

 barn-yard manure on all kinds of soil, they hastily 

 pronounce judgment against it. 



It has been a common remark that plaster did not 

 operate well near the sea; but there are exceptions to 

 this theory, and we much doubt whether the vicinity 

 of salt water checks its beneficial operation. We have 

 very generally found that our plaster had but little 

 effect on light, sandy plains, on low and wet grounds, 

 or in seasons when the clouds always furnished a 

 sufficiency of moisture. 



But on dry and heavy loams, on clayey soils, and 

 on gravelly hills with a deep loam, we have generally 

 noticed the good eflects of plaster. Even on the banks 

 of the Kennebec river, where much of the soil is 

 clayey, there are fields where plaster would not pay 

 the expense of spreading. Yet we have seen fields 

 there brought directly from sterility into heavy clover, 

 merely by the application of two bushels of plaster 

 sown on the acre. 



In' the town of Framingham we have lands on 

 which plaster seems to have no effect. These are our 

 plains, with a soil light and inclining to sand. We have 

 tried plaster on other lands in the same town, where it 

 had surprising effects ; where two bushels spread on an 

 acre has doubled the quantity of feed for two succes- 

 sive years. This land lies at the southwest part of the 

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