FAEMEES' INSTITUTES. 143 



easily with a few clays' work, it makes me think some one ought to stir some- 

 body up. All that is wanted is to tliinJc it can be done, and it will be done. 

 Let me say to yon who have one or more such blemishes on your farms, 

 go at them now, while the water is low, and persevere, and before you know it 

 they Avill be gone, and good crops will take the place of bushes and briars. 



James A. Lee, one of my neighbors, had a few acres of low ground covered 

 with poplar and cherry and grubs of all kinds, and also covered with water a 

 great portion of the year. Having been previously drained, it was cut off in 

 August, ' 73, of course when in full leaf, so that there was a great burden of 

 litter on the ground, which formed an excellent bed for fire. After lying about 

 one year it was burned. It was dug up a little with a plow and drag, and 

 sowed with wheat and grass seed. The wheat (a very good crop) was cut last 

 summer, and it now looks like old pasture land, and all in the short space of 

 two years. 



And now let me say to you that this reclaiming low, wet, marshy, shrubby 

 land is not a play spell, and is much easier talked about than done. You will 

 often hear men say that it is the best land we have, and all sorts of similar remarks, 

 but were I to take my choice between good, grubby openings and the low swales 

 of Michigan, I would take grubby upland ; and I think I ought to have a 

 choice, for I am pretty well used to both. I have followed the breaking plow 

 and grub hoe for the last 35 years, more or less. My doctrine is that a poor 

 man has no business with any more land, either wet or dry, than he can clear 

 up and use. To pay $15 or 820 per acre and let it lie idle is murder in the first 

 degree, financially. There are quite too many men in this county who are land 

 poor, just because they are sleeping, and thinking that the money they have 

 invested is going to double or treble while they sleep. 



In August last I bought an old, neglected farm, containing some wet land 

 which I directly set about draining. I asked my neighbor if he would let the 

 water off if I let it down on him, and he said "let it come ; I will take care of 

 it;" and he did. 



I cut a drain across, and without seeing another neighbor he continued it to 

 the line between his land and mine, and then we cut anotlier on the line ; and 

 in all, since I commenced work on the place, there have been over 400 rods of 

 drain cut. And let me say right here, that it has all been done without the aid 

 of township or drain commissioner, and I think that where ditching is required 

 it is much better for those interested to do it mutually, and thereby save the 

 expense of paying officers for locating, which sometimes costs nearly as much 

 as the digging. It has been my misfortune, while collecting taxes this winter, 

 to hear our supervisor most severely and unjustly censured on account of the 

 drain tax assessed on our township, for which he was no more resijonsible than 

 the tax -payers who abused him so unnecessarily. In my judgment our wet lands 

 can be drained just as effectually, and nmch more cheajjly, without the assist- 

 ance of red tape or taxes. 



One word about who can clear such land. A man must either have means to 

 hire, or else not be afraid to get into the briars and mud, or to put his team into 

 the mud ; otherwise he will be quite apt to get discouraged in the beginning. I 

 have spent the past two months in the swamp, and I am authorized to say that 

 the work is hard, and the poison sumach worse than the work. 



As to the first crop to raise on the low lands, I see now very plainly that if I 

 had at first understood what crop to use I could have done much better. The 

 past dry seasons I have raised very nice potatoes, selling them for three or four 



