RENOVATING WASTE LANDS. 35 



succeed in his calling. Farming is no exception. A man 

 has as broad a field for the exercise of his brain, and perhaps 

 a broader one than in some other professions. 



Mr. Burleigh. This question is not only what we shall 

 do with our waste lands, but what we shall not do ; and as a 

 matter of fact, I think that what has not been done has been 

 more beneficial than what has been done. Now I want to 

 show you what a couple of farmers in my town have done. 

 One was a hard-working man ; worked every day, and as a 

 natural consequence his oxen and help had to work hard 

 also, and he was always poor. He took up a farm of three 

 hundred acres. He was thoug'ht to be well off, but at the 

 time he died his estate was insolvent, and he paid ten cents 

 on a dollar. Notwithstanding all his work, his land had to 

 be sold by auction. The other man had a piece of land which 

 his father cleared and sowed to rye. It was one of these hill 

 tops. Well, he, the son, preferred to let it alone, and 

 seventy years after I paid him two hundred and sixty dollars 

 for the pine on the piece. He worked with his brain, and 

 died well off. There are to-day hundreds and I may say 

 thousands of acres, which if let alone and cattle kept out, 

 would in thirty or forty years pay four times as much as 

 could be got from them in any other way. I think less land 

 should be cultivated and more acres allowed to grow up to 

 wood . 



E. W. Anderson. I think there are too many of our best 

 acres in timber land to-day, and too many poor acres culti- 

 vated. I regard the swamps as worthy the notice of farmers. 

 It has been proved that some of the best grass crops of New 

 England have been taken from swamps. I think one of the 

 safest and best paying investments for farmers is to clear up 

 and drain their swamps. Some of the best land on my place 

 was once a swale. 



Alden Watts. I have always derived much profit from 

 drainage. I have one piece of land under a hill and there 

 were many springs upon it. In some winters ice would form 

 upon it a foot deep, and consequently would kill the grass. 



