Presentation copy from the author, who has crossed out the words a Society of Practical Farmers on the title-page, and substituted in ink his name Thos. Stone. In the upper margin he has written From the Author.

Thomas Stone’s autograph inscription on the title-page is the only source of information for the authorship of this book. It is not to be found in any of the reference books of pseudonymous literature, and is entered under Somerville as an anonymous work in the catalogues of the Royal Society of Agriculture, the British Museum and others.

This may be one of the publications referred to in Stone’s letter to Jefferson, written from Paris on April 10, 1804: “I beg you will do me the Honor of accepting the inclosed Publications, I am emboldened to take this Liberty from the great attention you give to the Science of Agriculture, in the Practice of which, I have devoted the most considerable part of my Life; I most heartily wish you Health to pursue the objects, which so happily for your Country, you have adopted.”

Thomas Stone, d. 1815, English agriculturalist, was the author of several reports for the Board of Agriculture, q.v.

John Southey Somerville, fifteenth Lord Somerville, 1765-1819, English agriculturalist.

On June 19, 1803, the year of its publication, Jefferson wrote to John W. Eppes concerning this work: “ . . . I inclose you one of Binns’s pamphlets on the use of plaister. it is bunglingly composed, but it is generally said his facts may be relied on. the important one is that from being poor he is become rich by it . . . ”

Jefferson sent at least two copies of the pamphlet to England. On June 30 of the same year, in a letter to Sir John Sinclair, after thanking him for various publications sent to him by the latter, Jefferson wrote: “ . . . I send you a small one in return, the work of a very unlettered farmer, yet valuable, as it relates plain facts of importance to farmers. you will discover that m ( ^~ r) Binns is an enthusiast for the use of gypsum. but there are two facts which prove he has a right to be so. 1. he began poor, & has made himself tolerably rich by his farming alone. 2. the county of Loudon, in which he lives had been so exhausted & wasted by bad husbandry, that it began to depopulate, the inhabitants going Southwesterly in quest of better lands. Binn’s success has stopped that emigration. it is now becoming one of the most productive counties of the state of Virginia, and the price given for the lands is multiplied manifold . . . ”

On the same day he wrote to William Strickland: “ . . . knowing your love of agriculture, and your skill in it, I could not pretermit the occasion of sending you the inclosed pamphlet on the use of Gypsum, by a m ( ^~ r) Binns, a plain farmer, who understands handling his plough better than his pen. he is certainly somewhat of an enthusiast in the use of this manure: but he has a right to be so. the result of his husbandry proves his confidence in it well founded for from being poor it has made him rich. the county of Loudon, in which he lives, exhausted & wasted by bad husbandry, has, from his example, become the most productive one in Virginia: and it’s lands, from being the lowest, sell at the highest prices. these facts speak more strongly for his pamphlet than a better arrangement & more polished phrases would have done . . . ”

John Alexander Binns, c. 1761-1813, the originator of what is now known as the Loudon system.