On Plaister of Paris. , 49 



Query 1. How long have you used plaister ? 



Answer, I have answered it in the foregoing. 



QuerY 2. What state or condition was your land in 

 when you began the use of it? 



Answer, Before I used the plaister my land was full 

 of twitch, or what is called blue grass, which afforded 

 little pasture, scarcely sufficient to fatten cattle for my 

 own use ; since the use of it for several years back, I 

 have fattened from forty to fifty each year, besides 

 mowing as much off the fields each year as afforded a 

 sufficiency of hay for my team and family horses, and 

 upwards of twenty catde ; before that my dependance 

 for hay was from bottoms and watered banks, the hay 

 from which was very inferior to that from the fields. 



Query 3. What quantity per acre have you general- 

 ly used. 



Answer, For several years I used between four and 

 five bushels per acre, but the two last years not more 

 than two or two and an half per acre. 



Query 4. What soils are most proper for this manure? 



Answer. A soil too light and sandy, or clay, I think 

 unfavourable, and that called loam, not over stiff, most 

 favourable.* 



*Ihad been informed of several instances of plaister being beneficial to c/w?/. But in every 

 Case I inquired into, I found the clay completely drained, by being thrown up in high ridges; and 

 all its moisture evaporated, or drawn off. See Mr. Young's excellent mode of ameliorating clayo 

 soils; Agricultural Memoirs, vol. 2, page 186. This not only changes the texture and nature of the 

 soil ; but adds the vegetable pabulum ^ov plaister, or lime. Mi-. Young's meritorious pei-severance:, 

 in this new and successful experiment, has earned the thanks of all farmers of such ung^teful 

 soils. I have seen indications of the fact, and have been informed, tliat the vitriolic acid of tke 

 'plaister on wet clay, has thrown up a concrete (alum) or. the surface, like a, hear frost. 



R. P. 



Sfipt ember }Sio. 



a 



