356 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



dred tons or more. About four hundred bushels of rye, in 

 all, have been harvested. The total amount of oats is not 

 known, as part of this crop was cut for green fodder. Hay, 

 rye, oats, and onions were represented at the annual fair of 

 the Marshfield Agricultural and Horticultural Society, and 

 are highly spoken of in the reports of the respective com- 

 mittees : the onions, as stated before, received a first premium. 

 Several applications for premiums on crops raised on the im- 

 proved marsh-lands sent to the Massachusetts Agricultural 

 Society were not entertained, on the ground that the Marsh- 

 field improvement was accomplished before the premium was 

 offered: the premium offered by that society was to apply 

 to future improvements and reclamations of marshes. The 

 prospects of the coming season are, on the whole, quite 

 encouraging, although there is some reason to apprehend, 

 that in some places, where the grass-sod still rests on a 

 spongy substratum, the drought of the latter part of the 

 last summer may have killed in a serious degree the roots 

 of the young grass. 



It may be stated that a part of the lands belonging to 

 the estate of the late T. B. Williams of Boston, about two 

 hundred acres in all, which for two years have not been 

 cultivated, have recently been rented for a term of years 

 by parties in Marshfield, who propose to continue the im- 

 provements so liberally inaugurated by the late owner. The 

 neglected condition of this property in the midst of success 

 has during the past year greatly marred the general appear- 

 ance of the marshes. Many people doubted in the outset 

 the general adaptation of the reclaimed sea-marshes for the 

 production of English grass without jDrevious application of 

 top-dressing of some kind or other; yet time has proved 

 otherwise. Those who have seen the grass on these mead- 

 ows during the past season, or witnessed the carting away 

 of the many loads of good English hay, have had all doubts 

 regarding their productiveness under even moderate chances 

 removed. The results thus far obtained have been more 

 than many of the friends of the enterprise anticipated, and 

 have convinced even the most sceptical, who are open to 

 conviction, of the exceeding natural richness of the soil, and 

 its excellent adaptation for the cultivation of a variety of 

 crops. Still greater results will be secured, no doubt, in 



