REPORTS OF DELEGATES. 205 



results. The best grass grows there spontaneously, if it be 

 proper so to speak. I saw more than one field in which, after 

 one or two years of cultivation of corn, a heavy sward of 

 Timothy had formed from seed sown by no mortal hand. This 

 peculiar adaptcdness to grass bearing was not only everywhere 

 visible to the eye, but especially perceptible to an observant 

 person in the soft, elastic, velvety feeling of the sod beneath the 

 foot, and this not only on cultivated fields, but in corners of 

 he roads and any sheltered spots where nature had been 

 assisted by any fertilizing stimulants. I saw many fields which, 

 after two or three years cultivation to corn, had for years 

 yielded from two to three tons annually of the best hay at the 

 first cutting, and a good crop of rowen following. There are 

 in the island in various places, inexhaustible beds of peat or 

 muck, black, pasty, decomposed vegetable matter, which, after 

 being dug out, worked over and dried, is very extensively used 

 for fuel. The freeness with which it burns shows it to be 

 almost entirely organic matter, and of course the most valuable 

 substance the farmers could have with which to qualify their 

 light soil ; indeed the effect of it upon the grass, when it has 

 been laid out to dry for fuel, can be distinguished by its dark 

 green as far as the eye can see. 



The importance and value of this are inestimable ; it is every 

 thing that is needed, and the expense of getting it out a mere 

 trifle. Great quantities of kelp and sea-weed can also be 

 collected, which makes a most valuable manure. 



Several kinds of fish, at some times and places, can be very 

 readily caught, furnishing the strongest of fertilizers. It does 

 seem to me that there is no part of the Commonwealth better 

 adapted to the growth of grass than Nantucket, and I have 

 been taught to believe that a " grass farm " was one of the 

 most desirable pieces of property to own or work, that we are 

 permitted to hold. I never saw better roots than I saw there, 

 both harvested and growing. Turnips, mangolds, carrots and 

 Swedes, in size, productiveness, uniformity, freedom from 

 vermin, and thriftiness of growth, were superlative. 



About eight thousand bushels of corn are annually raised 

 upon the island, to get which they plant nearly four hundred 

 acres, being an average of but little over twenty bushels to the 

 acre. With diffidence I would suggest that they should plant 



