10 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



some places was a foot thick and in others very shalloTT. 

 Draining and ploughing those pieces and incorporating the 

 gravel with the mud, were among the first of my improvements, 

 causing the land to produce two crops every year since. I 

 plough late in the fall, land that has been once fixed, and sow with 

 oats and grass seed the next June, because I cannot spare the feed 

 in the fall. New meadow should always be ploughed if possible ; 

 if not, gravel ; never burn except to get rid of roots, or stumps, 

 or hassocks bogged off, and then gravel or level up with loam. 

 I have seen the bad effect of burning meadows on some of my 

 neighbors' farms. Ashes produce great crops for three or four 

 years, and then it is in a worse state (if not heavily manured) than 

 before. Ashes in their effects arc precisely like rum, exciting 

 for a short time. Some of the land that I have reclaimed was 

 very miry, requiring the plough to be drawn with ropes attached 

 to something permanent on hard land, other lots have been 

 gravelled in the winter when frozen. 



Some three acres were completely covered with wood and 

 brush ; the stumps were taken out, the heights were bogged off, 

 and burned, then loam and gravel from an old road spread over 

 it. The last lot that I reclaimed was very near the river ; it 

 was covered with alder and skunk-cabbage, and so wet that 

 man or beast could hardly walk on it. Now, it is one of the 

 best pieces on the farm. Draining is the foundation of all 

 improvement in low land, and requires more judgment than 

 either of the other departments of farm work. Marginal drains 

 must be run, where, and how near together, is the question. I 

 have of that description, with stone laid in the bottom, and 

 covered, between five and six hundred rods, and one hun- 

 dred rods, with joist, and pieces of rails, and boards, in the 

 bottom. The first cost of covered drain is much more 

 than those of open, but after once made, more grass will 

 grow on them than on other parts of the piece ; there is no 

 cleaning out to be done and they will last as long as the 

 present generation. We have in our vicinity hundreds of acres 

 of land, not mud, but black soil, where the water oozes out till 

 June, which, if it was taken off would produce twice the hay, 

 with the same manure, and that of a much better quality. If 



