The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1886-04-28

thirty to fifty cents, has produced, or
increased, the crop three tons of hay,
or feed in proportion.
Such facts have come to the public
more numerously from the State of
New York than anywhere else, where
plaster has been most extensively used.
Last fall in the whole valley of the
Penobscot, one hundred miles north
and south on the alluvial Champlain
clays, found but single farmer in
the whole region getting any benefit
from plaster, while hundreds of farmers
were distressed to know how they
might sell hay in Bangor without spoil
ing their farms.
/ watched the reports of the Penob-
scot Farmers Club for two or three
years. There were frequent discus
sions on the hay crop, not once naming
plaster. When 1 give the facts in
public, l am met with incredulous ridi-
cule. One good farmer in Holden and
another in Orono testified to the bene-
fits of plaster in single trial thirty
years ago, but dared not repeat its use
for fear of spelling the land.
On granite and slate lands where
water is soft it has no effect. This in
cludes the whole of New Hampshire
and the most of Southern Maine, and
this failure on these granite hills has
kept thousands from trying on lime
soils near those hills The springs of
water from under the alluvium of
Aroostook river are soft, and plaster
does no good, while in Penobscot valley
the opposite is true-water is hard, and
plaster works its wonders.
With regard to the use of plaster on
grain and hoed crops, often hear the
farmers saying that it only shows its
effects about three years, while the
sod of broken-up grass-lands is rotting,
and facts generally indicate that it is of
doubtful utility on those crops, and
perhaps of lasting injury to the land,
though we cannot say but straw manure
previously put on might develop nj
trogen by plaster and make its effects
perpetual, as it does on grass-lands.
now come to the only known facts
as to how it does its wonders on grass
lands: First, it has in itself no plant
foods not afertilizer. Second, it takes
nothing from the air, for in all crops
its utility depends on the soil. Third
its effect on hill of corn is the same
when put in with stones on the hill as
when put upon the hill. (Any one may
put this to the test of trial. My au-
thority is Charles Gilman, a we'll
known farmer of Houlton, Maine. J
Fourth, little plaster scattered on a
pile of heating manure prevents all
evaporation of ammonia and thereby
retains the moisture and prevents burn
ing of the manure, and in this case it
cannot be as an absorbent, though as a
deodorizing agent in privies this may
be the case. Now, from these facts, l
venture conjecture that it has the
power to hold back the nitrogen of the
annual decay of grass-roots from escape
to the air, enough to perpetuate the
crop.
And now all 1 have to ask of the
many thousands of farmers living on
these extensive lime soil regions is to
put these statements to the test of trial.
Take any acre of dry grassland now in
sod and put on one hundred pounds of
plaster once in two years. Now it
every year and do what they like with
the hay. If the water in your wells
and springs is hard, try it. There is
not cent in it for me, but many mill
ions for them, either in selling hay or
using their manure on specialties.
Here in Northern Maine there are
many towns where for forty years they
have struggled to sell hay and oats in
alienation for less than the cost of
work, eXhausting their farms and
making them nearly worthless, when
they might have been rich from the
sale of hay with small outlay for plas-
ter. And to my surprise l cannot find
an agricultural college giving the mat
ter any attention, when the whole
might be put in textbook as clearly
as a problem in mathematics. Now,
farmers in the Champlain valley, or
any lime region, send forward your
facts and put me down.
M. r.. KEEP.
Ashland, Aroostook County, Maine.
THE Rural NeC Yorker says, speak