On Plaister of Paris. 89 



retain moisture, in the driest seasons, when there is not 

 the least appearance of it in those beds whereon no 

 plaister was strewed. If water be, according to an o\dflJ 

 as well as modern opinion, " almost all in all,'' in the 

 food of vegetables, the plaister attracts, or retains, 

 abundant supplies Y'^y' 



I do not like the plaister ground too fine. It flies 

 away in strewing, and is not so durable as that moderate- 

 ly pulverized. I think it sufficiently fine, if it be ground 

 so as to produce twenty bushels to the tun. It is most 

 common now, to make twenty-four or twenty-five bush- 

 els oi ditwn. fnj I have endeavoured to prevent the finer 



flj Lord Bacon, 



{mj Ing-enhausz is of opinion, that zvater is only a vehicle 

 of the food of plants, and by no means the true nourishment 

 of animals or vegetables, — the less so, as several plants can 

 live without being in contact with water. Essay on the 

 food of plants^ page 1. But Chaptal thinks water so essential, 

 that he says, (page 448, Philadelphia edition) " A plant 

 cannot vegetate without the assistance of water ; and that it 

 is the only aliment the root draivs from the earth'' 



fnj As a caution to farmers, I mention, that, at a late trial 

 of a cause in Bucks, between the buyer and seller of a horse, 

 it appeared in evidence, that, aiter his death, several stones, 

 weighing in the v/hole 15 pounds (one of them 7 pounds) 

 were found in the rectum and other viscera of that animal ; 

 and these were said to have occasioned his death. In ano- 

 ther instance (in the neighbourhood) of the death of a horse, 

 17 pounds w^eight of similar stones were found in his intes- 

 tines. The proprietors ox these horses had their horse-feed, 

 for a length of time, chopped at a mill where plaister was 

 ground ; and the grain for horse feed chopped by the same 



M 



