RECLAIMING BOG LANDS. 



117 



expressed that I had not bought more upland instead, so that I 

 could raise more grass and corn. 



It was a good hay season, and all the hay cut was judged to be 

 twelve tons. I bought it at that estimate, but do not think there 

 was so much. 



When a suitable time came, I commenced at the lower end of 

 the bushes, cut them out by the roots, cut and cleared off the 

 logs, and, where it was not springy, I plowed and seeded to 

 English grass ; where it was, I let the water grasses remain. I 

 have cut grass on some of it for more than twenty years, and it 

 has averaged two tons to the acre. The hay cut now is finer than 

 when I first mowed it, and by following up these places I have 

 been able to increase the quantity of hay upon my farm from 

 twelve to seventy or eighty tons, until within the last two years. 

 But these intervals and swales have not fallen off in quantity in 

 these years when the upland has not yielded a half crop. By 

 clearing these waste places, I am enabled to keep up the fertility 

 of the uplands. The sediment left after being overflowed, keeps 

 them enriched sufficiently to produce an even crop of grass with- 

 out any other dressing. 



Give us plenty of grass, and we can have plenty of most other 

 crops. I have failed to get as much benefit as some have from 

 concentrated dressings. My experience with them is that they 

 will start a plant early and hasten its ripening. Corn, for in- 

 stance, may be pushed along earlier and be got out of the way of 

 the frost sooner by using them, but for grass we must have dress- 

 ing that has more body to it than superphosphate, guano, plaster, 

 &c. From plaster there may be considerable benefit derived on 

 certain kinds of soil, but when land that has been plastered for a 

 number of years comes to be plowed, it needs more dressing of a 

 bulky nature to bring it up than it would if it had never been 

 plastered. My experience is that plaster does not do as much 

 good on land that has been plowed a number of times, as it does 

 on new land which has never been plowed. I cannot give the 

 reason why it is so, but I know it to be so from experience. 



The only way, according to my experience, ta make a sure 

 thing of fertilizing properly, is to carry back to the land all the 

 dressing we can make out of that we take cff of it. It will not 

 do to sell hay. It will not do to raise too many potatoes nor oats. 

 I am not satisfied that top dressing, in all instances, is the best 

 method of applying manure. For instance, to top-dress the past 



