Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1886-05-07
Facts about plaster.


the Vermont Waterman
have for % years been gathering facts on
the best authority of well-known farmers,
such as go to make clear what plaster does,
and how 1t does tor under what conditions
success or failure may be predlcted-going to
show, as infer, that the hay crop may be
made perpetual, so far as we yet know, with
out any other fertilizer, on the lime soils such
rs nearly the whole of Northern Maine, the
valley OF Penobscot river from three to ten
miles wide, the valley OF Lake Champlaln
for 20 miles or more on the Vermont side,
from Canada to Connecticut on the south,
nearly the whole of the state of New York,
together with all the lime regions OF the Mid
die States, Kentucky and Virginia. And now
any facts coming from any of these localities,
corroborating or denying my own statements
will be equally welcome to establish the truth
with it's limitations.
In Elmira, N. Y, Dr. Morrill,, an educated
physician, now a large farmer, will show
where may be seen grass ground mown for 70
years with full crop of hay, without any
other manure and without the sod ever being
broken. Judge Cummings OF Fort Fairfield,
Me-. will show a field moved in the same way
now % years. The Isaac Haynes farm near
Passadumkeag, 30 miles above Bangor, being
left by its occupants, was mown until the
crop was one-fourth ton to the acre in lS47.
! tons per acre for 80 years, when last re-
ported. Ia M4sardis Me. Sanfield Read, as
executor of his neighbours property, applied
plaster to the moving land, then yielding but
one-fourth ton to the acre, getting the first
year tons, the next year ? tons, and the
third year nearly the same as the first. All
over Aroostook county can find where 100
pounds of plaster, costing 80 TO 80 cents, has
produced, or increased, the crop three tons
g ku,v 81
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 val
ley of the 'Penobscot, 100 miles north and
south on the alluvial Champan clays, l found
but single farmer in the whole region get
ting any benefit from plaster, while hundreds
of farmers were distressed to know how they
might sell hay in Bangor without spelling
their farms
| watched the reports of the Penobscot far
mers' club for two or three years. There
we're frequent discussions on the hay crop,
not once naming plaster. When 1 give the
facts in public, l am met with incredulous
ridicule. One farmer in Holden and another
in Orono testified to the benefits of plaster in
single trial 80 years ago, but dared not re-
peat its use for fear of spelling the land.
On granite and slate lands, where water is
hOlt, IL HAS no eject. Ibis Includes the WlOl6
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
underline alluvium of Aroostook river are
soft, and plaster does no good while in the
Penobscot valley the opposite ia 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 say
ing 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 per-
haps of lasting injury to the land though
we cannot say but straw manure previously
put on might develop nitrogen 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 fertil.
izer Second, it takes nothing from the air
for in all crops its utility depend on the soil
Third, its effect on a 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 authority is Charles
Gilman, a well-known farmer of Houton,
Me- Fourth, little plaster scattered on
pile of heating manure prevents all evapora-
ton of ammonia and thereby retains the