Somebody has said it must be thrown on the leaves of the plant, while the dew is on to make it adhere, and because somebody said so, they, the people, accept it and act accordingly, without stopping to think, if it is founded in reason. I should as soon think of feeding my body by putting food into my boots, as of feeding the plant by putting food for the plant on the leaves. It must be mixed with the soil, and the plant food must be brought into a condition to be readily assimilated and taken up by the plant, before it can derive nourishment from it. The action of the plaster is to fix the ammonia in the soil, enabling the plant to take it up in growth, also, to aid in the decomposition of the vegetable substances turned under. I would always sow plaster before seeding to clover, it will keep it from dying and stimulate its growth. It is not the quantity of seed we sow that makes a good seeding, but the quantity we make live. The plaster will do it on any land of my acquaintance, if properly applied. Don't wait until you have your grain all sown, and your corn planted, until the dry spell has commenced, until your clover begins to kill out, or is half killed, then sow it expecting to bring it to life. Plaster will not bring the dead to life, neither will it act until it is wet, dissolved and in the soil.

Plaster should be sown on all newly turned sod, timothy or clover, unless it is yet strong in the soil from previous sowing. Why? It aids in the decomposition of the vegetable substances turned under, and also, it aids the soil to retain the ammonia instead of its being evaporated by the sun and drying winds, it being an exceedingly volatile substance. It should be sown on new sod if it is expected to sow wheat or any of the cereal grains, or be planted to corn. It will double a crop on such land in my experience. It should not be sown on old land that has been cropped to wheat for twenty years, until all the wheat producing elements are exhausted, simply to make wheat grow, it will not do it; you must not expect something from nothing. Plaster will do no good on wet land, neither will it do good on clear sand, unless there is some vegetable substance in the soil upon which it can act, still upon very poor sandy land it will make clover grow, and this should be the means to use to improve the sandy lands of the northern and western part of our state. Plaster will do very little good on land that is made very rich with thoroughly rotted manure, that is readily assimilated to the growth of plants, but if coarse manure be spread or plowed

in, plaster will act with profit. Plaster will do very little good to make any of the cereal grains grow on old or exhausted land, except clover be sown with it. The clover growing shades the land, keeping it moist, and the wheat or other grain will fill better than if there was no shading or clover with it, besides the clover will in a large degree take the place of weeds, which it will choke out if it is made to grow strong and vigorous.

A simple rule will enable any one to determine if plaster will benefit his crops. If the crop looks yellow and sickly, he may be sure plaster will greatly benefit it. If the leaves are tinged with purple or red upon the ends, although the growth is small, plaster will do no good; the farmer must look for some other remedy. Probably his land wants drainage. If the growth is rank, of a dark green color, and vigorous, plaster will do very little, if any, good. The plant-food in such soil is in a condition to be readily taken up by the plant without the aid of plaster.

It may be asked, how do you know about these things? I answer: I have used on my farm in the past eight years at least seventy tons of plaster, and have sown as much as eighty bushels of clover-seed, and have practiced turning my clover-sod in the fall, after cutting my second crop of clover for seed or for hay, and sowing to wheat or planting to corn, with good results every time. Pardon the egotism, but I have more than doubled the production of my farm in the past eight years by the use of plaster and clover, as indicated above, without extra expense more than the resultant profits year by year. There is no secret about it; any man can do as well, if he will but use the proper means at his command. Question. What kind of soil is your farm?

Mr. ALLEN. My farm is both prairie and openings, about equally divided, but the plaster does not act with as much effect upon the prairie soil as upon the openings, at least it does not act as quick; but on any soil with the proper conditions it will make a very great difference.

Question. How much to the acre do you sow?

Mr. ALLEN. About ten pounds.

Question. In what way?

Mr. ALLEN. I sow it broad-cast.

Question. What time would Mr. Allen sow plaster on meadow

or pasture?

Mr. ALLEN. As soon as you can in the spring.

Question. Have you not also made free use of manure as well as plaster?

Mr. ALLEN. I have; but by the aid of the plaster I have been able to raise great crops of clover, and keep stock and make mauure. Question. How much clover do you sow to the acre?

Mr. ALLEN. Well, as good a seeding as ever I made in my life I made with four quarts of clover seed to the acre, but I would recommend more than that; but with plaster sown on the ground at the time of seeding, about four quarts will make a better seeding than ten or twelve quarts will without it. The plaster makes it live.

Mr. J. N. SMITH. Has the gentleman tried plaster upon potatoes, beans or peas?

Mr. ALLEN. I have. On sod ground it will double the crop of peas; but it will do no good on a crop of peas on old ground.

Question. Why not?

Mr. ALLEN. I cannot tell you that, I wish I could; that is one of the things I cannot understand.

Mr. WHITING. I happen to be a neighbor of Mr. Allen, and his land lies on two sides of mine, and I know somewhat in regard to the history of his use of plaster. Although he is a very enthusiastic man and sometimes he is accused of riding a hobby, I don't thiuk he has ever ridden the hobby of plaster. I am satisfied that his neighbors pretty generally have become convinced that plaster is very profitable to use on the land in that vicinity. I would offer one criticism on one point. He undertakes to tell in that essay his experiences-what he knows, what have been his results, but he deviates from that to theorizing when he tells how and in what manner plaster effects those results. I don't think he knows anything about it.

Mr. BEMENT. Has Mr. Allen ever tried lime? In my experiience, lime does more good than plaster. It is well known that twenty-nine years ago we could raise a big crop, if we did'nt half put it in. The fact was, the ground was full of alkali. Now is that alkali in lime, or in plaster or manure? My experience is, it is in the lime. I think in a dry season lime will give a better result on my place than plaster. My soil is a black clay with a very little sand mixed with it. And also I have seen lime on clay

soil East. I knew a man, his name was Allen too-who come in there and bought a very poor farm that he was satisfied would not raise white beans; but there was a lime quarry on it, and he said he was going to burn lime, and he did, and put it on his land in large quantities, and in less than five years he had the best growing farm there was in the county.

Mr. ALLEN. About 15 years ago I had a lime kiln and I scattered a few loads of that lime on my soil, and I can say that I can use plaster with much more profit. There is no sort of comparison

between them.

Mr. J. W. WOOD. I will give a short experience in the use of plaster. The first year that I used it, I sowed it after my clover was half knee high. I intended to do it earlier, but the clover was pretty thick and began to look yellow, and I sowed the plaster in a dry time at the rate of a bushel on four acres; and for the purpose of testing it a neighbor had a piece of clover adjoining mine, with a fence between, and I without his knowledge got over and sowed in his clover for a little way, and after a while I told him I had committed a trespass and had put some plaster on his field, and I wanted him to find it, and in ten days the clover had changed its appearance and was growing ranker and greener, and as some of my neighbors could probably testify, there was twice the growth of clover produced where that plaster had fallen upon it. And it was so with the plaster I sowed on my neighbors piece, and you could tell even the motions I made in sowing on that man's land in the growth of the clover. And by the way, that same year I had some wheat and seeded the land to clover, and the clover was up, and the wheat, o its and barley were knee high. Isowed a strip clear through and back across the three kinds of grain, and I saw no particular difference in the crop; but the next year I took our Farmers' Club out to see where the plaster was sown, and they could pick out where I went and there was double the growth of clover where I sowed the plaster the year before. And accordingly some of the members of our Club took a notionto sow plaster with their wheat this spring; but I don't know whether it did much good to my own clover or not, but my clover was small in the fall. But a neighbor of mine who owned this land where I sowed plaster the year before, sowed plaster with his clover about ten days later than I did, and his seeding entirely failed and he plowed it up again; so that while Mr.

Allen is so strenuous for early sowing, it may be good; but I sowed it late and still it was good and I don't know but I got as much benefit from the late sown plaster as I would had it been sown earlier.

Mr. PORTER. I want to say a very few words in reference to the subject of fertilizing our soil, and I am in harmony with all that Mr. Allen has said. I think he is perfectly right in reference to the instructions he has given us, so far as plaster is concerned, but there are other things connected with our fertilizing of importance to the whole people of the United States.

If there be a single thing in the management of farms in which we are deficient, it is the one thing of fertilization. If we fertilize our farms and do it knowingly, without thoroughly thinking the subject over carefully, and becoming thoroughly aware that we are right, and right every time, we shall be living, as a part of us have been living and are living to-day, upon what we term exhausted soil. Well, the thing is a disgrace to every thinking farmer, to think that we live upon exhausted soil. In my opinion there ought to be no such word in the vocabulary of the farmer--there is no call for it. Why, your unworthy speaker was born upon the land his forefathers had lived on at the time of his birth over nine hundred and fifty years, and yet that farm was not exhausted by any means. It grew larger crops at the time I was a boy than it had ever grown at any time in the history of the farm, and I believe it is growing the same to-day. It never will be exhausted; and the farmer's soil has no business to be exhausted.

No farmer must say that his farm is exhausted, that he cannot grow this, that, and the other thing on the farm, because his land is not adapted to such and such crops. I know farmers all around me tell me their farms won't grow clover, they have tried it. And I said to one of my neighbors, who was complaining that way, "you are about beat with that land, what will you take for it? And he says, "I will take so much." I took it, and a few days ago he asked me, "why could not I grow clover on that land as well as you." Says I, "you never tried." "Why," said he, "I spent over two hundred and fifty dollars in buying seed to put on that land, and I never could get anything." Said I, "you did not try until it would grow nothing else." He had gone on the idea of wheat, oats, and corn, and took everything off from it, and then he expected