32 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
sage and pepper, and fry well in butter. Take also a pound of fat 
pork, cut into shreds, and fry brown ; then in the fat which the pork 
produces, fry thoroughly a quart of sliced onions. A second portion 
of the head, &c. is then to be fried in butter, which is to serve, with 
a part of the forced meatballs, as a second dish. The third portion 
of the meat is then to be chopped fine, and put into the liquor in 
which the head has been boiled, together with the brains and fried 
pork and onions, the whole seasoned with pepper, cloves, thyme and 
marjoram, or such of these as are at command, and boiled briskly at 
least an hour and a half. The soup may be served up with a part 
of the meat balls, and the yolks of half a dozen eggs boiled hard, and 
epicures may add lemons or claret if they have them. The fried 
dish may be garnished with parsley and eggs. In this way, from 
materials which may be produced on every larm with the exception 
of a fippenny-worth of spices, may be made four or five gallons of as 
rich and grateful a soup as ever graced an alderman’s board, and 
boiled and fried enough to dineMaj. Jack Downing’s brigade of mi¬ 
litia. 
I like our yankee Johnny-cakes well; but as I like them of the 
south better, I have obtained, and successfully practised, the follow¬ 
ing Virginia method of making the latter. Take one quart of milk 
warm from the cow, two eggs, a tea-spoonful of salaratis, and Indian 
meal sufficient to make a batter of the consistence of pancakes. 
Bake quick, in pans previously buttered, and eat warm. 
I will trouble you with only one other receipt, at this time, for a 
farmer’s dish, and that is for what is called 
A Bird’s-nest Pudding .—Pare and core six or eight good tart ap¬ 
ples, so as to leave them whole, and place them in a pudding dish. 
Take a quart of milk, nine eggs and sufficient wheat flour to make 
a thin batter; pour on to and cover the apples ; bake in an oven till 
done ; and eat with a sauce of sugar and butter, either cold or melt¬ 
ed. A FARMER’S WIFE. 
Miscellaneous. 
EXPERIMENTS WITH GYPSUM. 
BY THE LATE JOHN TAYLOK, OF VIRGINIA. 
A few of the experiments I have made with gypsum, are mention¬ 
ed, to take a chance for adding a fact to your information on that 
subject. 
1803. March 15th. Oats and clover, both just up, plastered them 
at one bushel to the acre ; three weeks after, plastered them again 
with the same quantity. Upon both occasions left the richest por¬ 
tion of the plat unplastered. This only produced one-third, both of 
oats and clover, of the plastered lands. 
April. Mixed or rolled a bushel of piaster with as much seed corn, 
keeping it wet whilst planting. With such rolled seed planted a 
field of 40 acres, except eight rows through the centre which were 
unplastered. The land poor. The inferiority of these eight rows 
was visible, from the moment the corn was up, to its being gathered. 
1804. April. Rolled the seed corn of two hundred acres in like 
manner, leaving eight rows across the field, so as to intersect with 
flat, hilly, sandy, stiff, rich and poor land. Their inferiority was so 
visible, that from an eminence in the field, a stranger could point out 
the eight rows from the time the corn was three inches high, until 
it was all in tassel. In this, the eight rows were a week later than 
the plastered corn. The plastered corn stood the best, was forward- 
est, and produced the greatest crop. Its fodder dried about ten days 
sooner. 
1805. April. Plastered as above, the seed corn of 30 acres of 
rich moist land, leaving eight rows. Corn injured by too much rain. 
No difference between the eight rows and the rest. 
May 7th. Replanted my corn on high land, which had been much 
destroyed by mice, moles and birds, mixing two quarts of tar well 
with one bushel of seed corn, and then plastering it as above. The 
best remedy I ever tried againts those evils, and the plaster as usual 
accelerated and benefited the corn. 
April 25th. Plastered three bushels on three acres of clover just 
up, sown alone on land half manured with coarse manure. A good 
crop. 
May 9th. Seven bushels on seven acres or forward wheat and 
clover. Wheat heading; land thin ; the clover exceeded what such 
land had usually produced. No benefit 'o the wheat. 
May 10th. Six bushels on six acres of very bad clover sown last 
spring. Clover just beginning to bloom. The season became moist 
and it improved into a fine crop. 
May 10th. Last spring I left an unp’lastered strip of 20feet wide 
quite across a field of clover. It was all cut except this strip, which 
was so bad as not to be worth cutting. This spring on this day, 
(clover beginning to bloom,) the strip was still much inferior to the 
adjoining clover, which was good. 1 plastered it at a bushel to an 
acre, leaving the rest of the field unplastered. It equalled the ad¬ 
joining clover in one month. 
May 16th. Sowed 23 bushels on 23 acres of corn in a large field. 
Ploughed in part immediately, harrowed in part, and left part on the 
surface ten days before it was worked in. Corn four inches high. 
Weather moist. No difference between the three divisions. The 
seed of the whole field had been rolled. These 23 acres exceed¬ 
ed the adjoining corn 25 per cent: its blades and tops also dried 
sooner. 
June 15th. Plastered at three bushels to the acre, a strip of goose 
grass or English grass—no effect on land or grass. 
August 10th. Sowed 50 acres of thin sandy land, in corn at the 
time, in clover, and 40 bushels of plaster on the seed, harrowing 
bolh lightly in. A moderate shower in four days, succeeded by a 
severe drought. Clover sprouted and chiefly perished. A good co¬ 
ver of bird-foot clover followed; land so visibly improved, that a 
stranger could mark the line of the plastering by the growth. That 
and the adjoining land in corn in 1808. The difference visible in fa¬ 
vor of the plastered land. 
September 17th, to the 5th of October. Sowed 88 bushels of 
yellow latter bearded wheat; 171 of forward, mixing half a bushel 
of plaster with one of wheat, a little wetted. One bushel of for¬ 
ward, and three pecks of latter wheat were sown to an acre. All 
among corn. Two slips of 30 feet each were left across the field, 
in which unplastered wheat was sown. Where the land was san¬ 
dy, the unplastered wheat was best, owing to the great growth of 
bird-foot clover among the plastered. This discovered the effect of 
gypsum on that annual grass. Where this grass did not appear 
there was no difference between the plastered and unplastered 
wheat. From the spring of 1806 to this tinw, the unplastered slips 
have been distinctly marked, by a vast inferiority of the weeds and 
grass naturally produced. 
November 23d. Sowed three bushels of plaster on one and a 
half acres of wheat, left unplastered for the purpose, in the field last 
mentioned, on the surface. Weather moist. No effect on the 
wheat, on the ground, or in the growth, to this day, though the 
plaster was of the same kind with that used in the last experi¬ 
ment. 
1806, March and April. Sowed 200 acres of clover with plaster, 
at different times when the weather was dry, moist, windy, and still, 
part at three pecks—a bushel and five pecks to the acre, leaving a 
slip of 20 feet wide across the field, to ascertain the goodness of the 
plaster, which was of a hard white kind, that hitherto used being 
soft and streaked. The-clover in this strip was bad, on each side of 
it fine. No apparent difference was produced by weather, quantity 
or times of sowing. The whole crop far surpassed in goodness 
whatever such lands had produced before, except the slip, as to 
which Pharaoh’s dream seemed reversed. 
April and May. Rolled all my seed corn as usual, leaving slips 
unplastered. An excessive drought. No difference between these 
slips and the rest of the field. The following year when that grass 
grew, tufts of luxuriant bird-foot clover designated the exact spots 
where the plastered corn had been planted. 
April 23d. Sowed 16 bushels of plaster on eight acres of oats 
and clover, just up, intending to have a great crop, and leaving a 
slip. Land naturally fine and highly manured. Drought as above 
excessive. Oats bad. No difference between the slips and the 
rest. Clover killed. Land ploughed up in September and put 
in wheat. Clover sown in 1807 on the wheat. A heavy crop 
of wheat, clover plastered in March 1808, at a bushel to the 
acre; crop very great. No inferiority in the slip unplastered in 
1806. 
1807, March 1st to 12th. Sowed clover seed on one hundred 
acres in wheat, and 80 bushels of plaster, the sowers of the latter 
following those of the former. Left a strip of 20 feel. Weather 
dry, moist, windy or calm, and for two days of the sowing a snow 
two inches or less deep on the ground. Land stiff, rich, poor or 
sandy, and of several intermediate qualities. The clover came up 
better than any I ever sowed on the surface; the strip was a lit¬ 
tle, and but a little, inferior to the adjoining clover, which I at- 
I tribute to its receiving some plaster from the effect of a high wind. 
