Water, 21 per cent.
Lime, 33 "
Sulphuric acid, 46 "
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100
Plaster was used as a fertilizer by the early Roman and British farmers.
It was introduced into America in 1772. It may here be worthy of notice,
that when Dr. Franklin desired to exhibit its utility to his unbelieving
countrymen, he sowed upon a field near Washington, in large letters, with
pulverized gypsum, the following words: "This has been plastered."
The result is supposed to have been highly convincing. But this was as a
manure. Dr. Franklin did not recommend it as a condiment.
You may know children who have been sown with plaster--though that plaster
was modified by the smaller admixture of sugar--by their pale, puny,
weakly appearance. Sugar has a tendency to increase the fatty and warming
matter of the system; gypsum, or terra alba, to destroy it.
Gypsum is used in confectionery without being calcined. Calcined plaster,
after being wet, readily "sets," or hardens. Heating gypsum deprives it of
the percentage of water, when it is known to commerce as "plaster of
Paris." It is cheap as manure; hence it is used instead of sugar.
Terra alba taken into the system absorbs the moisture essential to health,
and disposes the child to weakness of the joints and spinal column, to
rickets, marasmus, and consumption. There are other diseases to which its
habitual use exposes the user; but if parents will not heed the above
warning, it is useless to multiply reasons for not feeding children upon
cheap or adulterated confectionery.