388 On Oat Pasture^ 



The Rockland farm, exhibited a subject for experi- 

 ment, as it had not only been reduced by cropping, but 

 geneially, became a common for every animal, to take 

 what remained of the scanty natural, but coarse her- 

 bage : having read in various books the result of sow- 

 ing plaister and clover, it was presumed, that sowing 

 plaister and clover, would be the extent of the expen- 

 ces, required to fertilize the fields, in a few years ; — a 

 few experiments, proved that the plaister and clover 

 seed were both lost, as no one could at any season of 

 the } ear, point out what field, or upon what part of any 

 field they had been deposited, unless where the briars 

 and bushes had been eradicated. 



It should however have been mentioned, that the soil 

 was generally a cold or heavy clay, some blue, white, 

 light brown and a few spots of red clay, loaded with 

 hard blue stone and rocks, chiefly quartz, mixed with 

 iron, and copper. Some of the experiments were made 

 with plaister, oihers were made by top dressing with 

 lime, at the rate of twenty-five, to thirty bushels per 

 acre : the lime was brought 20 or 25 miles from the 

 kiln, and laid on the field at 25 cents per bushel : it 

 w^as formed into a bed of about half a foot thick and 

 covered with earth, ploughed and thrown over it, before 

 it was slacked, that all the phosphoric principle disen- 

 gaged by the water, might be united with the earth 

 which covered it ; a heavy harrow was afterwards passed 

 over it, so soon as the shell was reduced to powder ; 

 the bed of liaie and earth, Avas then frequently turned 

 by the plough and harrow, until the whole assumed, 

 the appearance, and sukII, of soapers ashes, containing 

 about ten parts of common soil, to one of lime. It was 



