42 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



And mingle in truth they did, into as free, healthy a soil, as fresh 

 and as mellow as if it had never lain underground or been out 

 of the sunshine. With every turn of the horses, better and 

 better it looked and worked. An increasing elasticity of move- 

 ment seemed to pervade men, horses, harrows, soil, and even 

 the very atmosphere of the field." 



So much for Talpa, but let me recommend it to your own 

 perusal. In England and Scotland, you are well aware, there 

 are thousands of acres which but a few years since were fen, 

 bog and heath, now smiling in all the splendor and richness of 

 glorious crops, xind there are also thousands of acres which 

 formerly were among the most productive, now yielding so 

 large an increase on their former products by virtue of thorough 

 draining, as to pay in two, and sometimes one crop, the whole 

 cost of drainage. I am well aware you may exclaim, " But 

 Euffland is not New England. Labor costs'there but half what 

 it does here ; their soil is one thing, ours is another, — their 

 summers are moist, ours are subject to intense and scorching 

 drouths, — and granting that this draining would improve our 

 swamp land, it never would answer for our meadows." Or, it 

 may be objected, " land is cheaper here than it is in England — 

 better purchase more land than to throw away money on that 

 we already have ; for surely it is better to own an hundred 

 acres than fifty." 



To the first objection, I would say, the experiment has been 

 well tried, and the result, so far from bearing an unfavorable 

 comparison with that in England, proves satisfactorily that 

 thorough draining and subsoiling would be beneficial in the 

 highest degree to the larger portion of our land that is now 

 under cultivation, as well as to much that is considered useless 

 for all purposes of husbandry. Appended to the volume before 

 referred to, are two papers written by farmers in the State of 

 New York, who have made very careful experiments and noted 

 the results. One of them says, in reference to soil, situation, 

 &c., " The soil is mostly a loam with a slight mixture of sand 

 and gravel, and in some of the lower places, a portion of 

 mucky or decomposed vegetable surface soil, which has doubt- 

 less been formed by the wash of the land around, and which 

 has settled in these places. The land is elevated much above 

 the average of lands in this immediate vicinity, and lies in a 



