On Gypsum* 59 



riant bird-foot clover, designated the exact spots where 

 the plaistered corn had been planted. 



April 23d. Sowed 16 bushels of plaister on eight acres 

 of oats and clover, just up, intending to have a great 

 crop, and leaving a slip. Land naturally fine and high- 

 ly manured. Drought as above, excessive. Oats bad. 

 No difference between the slip and the rest* Clover kill- 

 ed. Land ploughed up in September and put in wheat. 

 Clover sown in 1807 on the wheat. A heavy crop of 

 wheat, clover plaistered in March 1808, at a bushel to 

 the acre ; crop very great. No inferiority in the slip un- 

 plaistered in 1806. 



1807, March 1st, to 12th. Sowed clover seed on 

 one hundred acres in wheat, and 80 bushels of plaister 

 the sowers of the latter following those of the former. 

 Left a strip of 20 feet. Weather dry, moist, windy or 

 calm, and for two days of the sowing a snow two inches 

 or less, deep, on the ground. Land stiif, rich, poor or 

 sandy, and of several intermediate qualities. The clover 

 came up better than any I ever sowed on the surface, 

 the strip was a little, and but a little inferior to the ad- 

 joining clover, which I attribute to its receiving some 

 plaister from the effect of a high wind. The whole field 

 received three pecks to the acre in 1808, and was the 

 best piece of high land grass of the size I ever saw. 

 The wheat received no benefit. 



March 10th. Sowed 40 bushels of plaister on 60 acres 

 of poor land, cultivated in corn (Indian) last year, and well 

 set with bird-foot clover, leaving an unplaistered slip. 

 Weather dry and windy. Effect vast. Strip visible to an 

 inch, as far off as you could distinguish grass. The bird- 



