State Convention-—Renovation of Soils. 317 
Platteville. They tell me we can get plaster just as good for $2.50 
a ton at Fort Dodge, Iowa. It will cost $7 or $7.50 a ton to de¬ 
liver it in Platteville. There is no doubt that if that is good plas¬ 
ter, it is to our advantage to get plaster from Fort Dodge, instead 
of getting it from Michigan. Fort Dodge is where the cardiff-gi- 
ant came from. What I wanted is to add ni} r testimony in refer¬ 
ence to the application of plaster. I was an unbeliever. You con¬ 
verted me last year at the agricultural convention. 
Mr. Boyce: I am told by Mr. Tuttle, of Baraboo, that arrange¬ 
ments have been made by which plaster can be delivered, from 
those plaster-beds at Fort Dodge, on the line of any railroad in this 
State, at a cost of $5 per ton, in quantities. 
President Stilson: I would say it is unsafe to postpone sowing 
plaster until June, It should be sown the first week in May. Last 
year, being a wet season, Mr. Robbins got good results. In a dry 
season, he would have received no such results with June-sowing. 
Mr. Eaton: This subject of clover seemed to be the main point 
in the paper just read, and inasmuch as the personal pronoun “I,” 
has figured largely in the discussion, I propose to have my say on 
the subject. I have been engaged in the cultivation of clover for 
some time. I live only twelve miles from my brother Clark. Mr. 
Clark has been using plaster with success. Similar papers to the 
one that has been read here, have been read on former occasions and 
have induced my immediate neighbors to sow plaster. It has been 
found entirely useless in the neighborhood where we live. We live 
on black prairie-soil. I wish to state to this convention the diffi¬ 
culties I have to contend with in the cultivation of a crop of clover. 
In the first place clover is usually sown among grain, mostly oats. 
The first difficulty is, the crop of oats grow up with such great 
rapidity as to make the clover spindling, and in many instances 
the clover falls down if a storm comes a few days before cutting it, 
entirely destroying it. The second difficulty is, having succeeded 
in the oats not growing too rank, with winters similar to the pre¬ 
sent one, the disagreeable spring causes it to freeze out; then I must 
plow it up and try it again. My third and last difficulty is this: 
when I get a good stand of clover, and it lives through the winter, 
when I go into the field with my mower and mow it, the horses 
tramp over the ground, the machine runs over it, and not having a 
tedder, it is almost impossible to cure it on the ground. If those 
