86 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



out the plough than with it, is a very important one to discuss 

 practically. 



'Mr. Lathrop. — The best piece of pasture that I have, is a 

 piece from which the timber was cleared in 1840. In the 

 winter of 1850, the cord wood was drawn off. The sprouts 

 were then four or five feet high. Next year I cleared them off, 

 and sowed plaster at the rate of one hundred pounds to the 

 acre. That pasture will summer a cow to the acre, on the 

 average. It is now covered with white clover and Kentucky 

 blue-grass. My other pastures were covered, some sixty years 

 ago, with small pines. These were cleared off and plaster 

 sown, and the grass commenced growing very luxuriantly. 

 The owner, who had six hundred acres, could hardly buy cattle 

 enough to eat up his feed, whereas he had formerly been 

 obliged to send his young stock away to pasture. We take 

 pains to mow our brakes and Canada thistles, for we are not so 

 fortunate as Mr. Anderson, and find that no grass will grow up 

 among the thistles. I can only say, that we attribute the 

 improvement of our pastures more to plaster than anything 

 else. I should not plough woodland, nor burn it, but let the 

 leaves and small brush remain to enrich the soil. 



Mr. Wetherell. — Some twenty years ago, the Essex County 

 Society put forth the inquiry, whether plaster exhausted the 

 lands. There was a gentleman in our village who had a plaster 

 mill, and I knew his way was to use his plaster quite freely on 

 his land. I went to him and asked him, " How long has your 

 pasture been plastered ?" " For some over thirty years ; some- 

 times once a year, and sometimes twice." " Well, what was 

 the condition of that land previous to the application of the 

 plaster?" "I had six acres, and could barely keep one cow. 

 I have reduced it down to about four acres, and keep a horse, 

 a yoke of oxen, two cows, and sometimes a calf." And that 

 pasture will do the same thing now. I think if plaster would 

 exhaust land, that would have been exhausted long since. 



Asa Clement, of Dracut. — The pasture land in our locality 

 has deteriorated within my recollection greatly, and it has been 

 a part of my study, at least, to learn to improve my own 

 pastures. I have come this conclusion, that it is, as has just 

 been remarked, bad policy to burn upon our soils, when there 

 is so little vegetable matter in them. If you must burn at all, 



