RECLAIMED MEADOWS. 37 



Nor do I state it because I think it the best mode of converting 

 fresh meadows into English grass lands, for I have no donbt that 

 in all cases when it can be done it is best to plough them. 

 Neither can I be charged, in this particular, with preaching 

 what I do not practice, for I ploughed ten acres of meadow last 

 fall, and have just finished between twelve and fourteen this 

 fall. I plough with a pair of wheels, so as to keep the off ox 

 out of the furrow, chaining the plough to the axletree, inside 

 the off wheel. I use one of the largest road coulter ploughs, 

 with a drag cutter, (a wheel or circular cutter may be better,) 

 made by Ruggles, Nourse & Co., which turns a furrow averag- 

 ing a foot in deptli and something over two feet wide. But I 

 am travelling out of the record. To return, I have to say in 

 §ivor of this mode of planting potatoes, — which is akin to the 

 " lazy be.d system," as it is termed on the other side of the wa- 

 ter, — that when a meadow is so situated that it cannot be 

 plouglicd, I have no doubt that this is the best and most eco- 

 nomical mode of changing it into valuable grass land. It would 

 be well, too, if a man has not a very large quantity of such land, 

 and is not in too great a hurry to convert it into grass, to plant 

 it more than one year, running his trench the second season 

 through the middle of the bed of the first. Perhaps three sea- 

 sons would be still better, for then the whole land would be 

 thoroughly worked and its character completely changed, and 

 every trace of its natural product entirely obliterated. But if 

 a meadow is thoroughly drained, and so situated that it can be 

 ploughed and grass seed sown upon the furrow, a victory has 

 been gained over it, the benefit of which cannot be taken away 

 until the drains are choked and the meadow again saturated 

 with water. . It only needs a little subsoil from the high lands, 

 all the better if it be inclined to clay, or gravel, or common sand 

 even, when nothing better is at hand, to produce remunerating 

 if not abundant crops of the best grasses for an ordinary life- 

 time. 

 Rowley, November 15, 1855. 



Statement of Williom Osborne. 

 The meadow I offer for premium contains two acres and 

 ninety-eight rods, which I commenced clearing in the fall of 

 1852. It was then covered with alders, pines, blueberry buslies, 



