160 * BOAED OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan*, 



Mr. Wetherell. When they ask from $300 to $500 for a 

 Jersey, if you have profit in your eye, I think you better stick 

 to the crossbred. 



Question. What is the best method of reclaiming a bog 

 meadow ? 



Several Voices. Ditch it. 



Mr, Hubbard. There is not, of course, any definite or 

 explicit answer to be given to that question. It may take a 

 man several years to study out the best way, but I do not 

 think there is a bog meadow in the State of Connecticut that 

 ought to be let alone. You may not see at once, you may 

 not see in a year, you may not see in four or five years, just 

 'what to do, but the fact is this, that these bog meadows con- 

 tain elements of fertility that have washed down from the 

 hills, gathered there, and been preserved there by being satu- 

 rated with water for generations, centuries — no one knows 

 how long. There is a great deal of fertility stored up in bog 

 meadows, and they ought not to be passed over without con- 

 sideration. If a man has a bog meadow on his farm, let him 

 go to work and study it until he finds out what is best for it, 

 and then go to work and do it. 



Mr. Wetherell. The shortest way is to take the water 

 from it, without any reflection, and when you have got the 

 water out of it, plow it and raise a crop of oats or potatoes, 

 and then seed it down to herds-grass and get your crop. I 

 have tried it, and the first crop of potatoes after draining the 

 swamp paid me for all the labor that it cost to drain it. 



Mr. Hyde. I would suggest sending our boys down to the 

 Storrs School to study this subject. 



Mr. ScoviLLE. I have six acres of bog meadow, and my 

 plan has been to dig the ditches about thirty feet apart, three 

 feet deep, eighteen inches at the top and sixteen at the bot- 

 tom, and lay two round stones, the size of a small loaf of 

 bread, and cover it with stone — I would rather have round 

 stone than flat — and then pack around it, filling it with earth 

 from my hill land within eight inches of the top. I have got 



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