214 PRACTICAL AGRICULTURE. 



grain crops, but more especially for Avheat, that not a 

 particle of it should be lost. Every ounce of old plas- 

 tering should be put upon the field. Even the rubbish 

 of old brick walls should be pounded up and put upon 

 the land. But this and old plastering should be spread 

 thinly over a large surface. Probably a ton of either, 

 if mixed with a compost that was to cover 5 acres, 

 would benefit the first year's crop more than 5 tons 

 spread on a single acre. 



409. Whether the new occupant of this farm should 

 go largely into the use of plaster is a question for him 

 to settle on the ground. He should, at any rate, have 

 some on hand to use about his manures. There is a 

 strong presumption in favor of plaster on a farm upon 

 which nothing is known of its effects by experience. 

 He should inquire of his neighbors. If their testimony 

 is against the use of plaster in that region, let him not 

 believe it, but let him make the trial for himself. 

 He may make it on a small scale at first, so as not to 

 injure him much if it fails. If, on the other hand, the 

 testimony of the neighborhood is favorable to the use 

 of plaster, he might take it as undoubted. A hundred 

 neighborhoods have testified falsely against the use of 

 plaster in their particular location, to where one has 

 over-estimated its value. Very few are the locations 

 where plaster is not worth the purchase-money or 

 more. 



410. It is very true that plaster cannot be relied 

 upon alone. It is not a manure in the fullest sense of 

 the word. It contains but two ingredients, and those 



