Rural Economy in New England 329 



lated during the winter was imperfectly protected from the weather 

 and consequently a large proportion of it was wasted.^ 



An artificial manure, or commercial fertilizer, as it would be called 

 nowadays, known as gypsum or Plaster of Paris, had been intro- 

 duced in a few towns as early as 1800. Like other calcareous sub- 

 stances, it did not furnish a lacking element of plant food, yet its 

 action was beneficial in counteracting the acidity of certain soils, 

 and it may have also aided in retaining moisture in dry soils. The 

 gypsum used in New England was quarried in Nova Scotia and 

 transported hither by water. Then it had to be ground, either 

 in plaster mills erected for that purpose, or more often, in grist mills. 

 The cost of this process plus that of transportation and of quarry- 

 ing, made this form of fertilizer so expensive that only a few farmers 

 could afford to use it.^ Consequently its use was confined to a few 

 towns in sections from which crops could be exported, such as the 

 wheat-growing regions of the western counties and in the Connecticut 

 Valley.3 



On the seacoast two fertilizers were easily accessible, fish and sea- 

 weed. Along the Connecticut shore of Long Island Sound, white- 

 fish were caught in great quantities and applied to the land at the 



them for the day; they are suffered to range at large in summer; it is not uncommon 

 to bring them up in the evening, and let them lie till morning in the roads; the 

 first rains wash the roads clear for the traveller, without any injury to the farmer, 

 who would not have taken the trouble to have cleaned them for any other pur- 

 pose; . . . ." Letter in American Museum, II. 347. 



* European travelers could not understand why the New England farmers 

 and those of the Eastern states in general should be so indifferent to this means 

 of fertilization. Harriott relates, Struggles through Life, II. 216, that on the 

 farm which he purchased on Long Island there was "some hundred loads of man- 

 ure which had been accumulating for several years, to the great damage of the 

 buildings." This accumulation was looked upon by his neighbors as an encum- 

 brance, merely, and the former owner advised him to move his barn, as this would 

 be an easier way out of the difl&culty than moving the manure. A similar state 

 of affairs was described by La Rochefoucauld in Lebanon, Connecticut. Travels, 

 L 516. 



2 Livingston, American Agriculture, p. 338, estimated the cost to the farmer 

 at 50 cents a bushel. When we consider that the purchasing power of money 

 was very considerably higher in those days, this price, which is about that which 

 a farmer pays nowadays for his commercial fertilizers, seems extremely high. 



' Kendall found gypsum costing $20 a ton in use by the farmers in Sharon, 

 in Litchfield County. Travels, I. 231. Dwight, in the course of his travels, 

 found gypsum in use in nine towns in New England. It is significant that eight 

 of these towns are in the Connecticut Valley. The ninth, Plainfield, Connecticut, 

 profited by the outlet for surplus products furnished by the port of Norwich. 



