296 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



down to grass, and the last season yielded, in the two crops 

 of hay, five tons per acre, and there is a reasonable prospect 

 of an equal amount for three or four years : with a top-dress- 

 ing, a continuance for as much longer time. 



It may seem almost incredible that the first crop on this 

 land should have paid the whole cost of the improvement 

 and cultivation of the crop. But when we consider the very 

 favorable location, the narrow breadth around the pond 

 (which made the clearing of the clumps of roots from it easy), 

 the character of the other portion that could be ploughed in 

 the way described, and that the porosity of the peat was such 

 as made no other draining necessary, except the lowering the 

 outlet of the pond, with a gravel-bank close at hand, and 

 most of the labor being done at a season when other work 

 was not pressing, it may not appear so strange ; and yet this 

 swamp was located in the centre of a large farm within 

 twenty rods of the front of the house, with all of the oppor- 

 tunities described, and no attempt to reclaim it until now. 

 Four acres of the most productive and profitable land has 

 taken the place of an unsightly, unhealthy, worthless morass, 

 and at no cost ; for one crop paid all expenses. 



I have no doubt there are hundreds of opportunities as 

 favorable as this in Massachusetts ; and yet there are persons, 

 even calling themselves farmers, who say that farming does 

 not pay. I now desire to call attention to another swamp, 

 of an entirely different character, requiring as different treat- 

 ment in reclaiming, which is a part of the same farm as the 

 last. The swamp that I now describe contains about twenty 

 acres, and was purchased five years ago, by Addison Childs, 

 Esq., who constructed a system of thorough drainage. This 

 swamp is nearly level, and has a surface of about eight inches 

 deep, lying upon a bed of hard-pan gravel, with some clay 

 intermixed. Many years ago the bushes were cleared off, 

 and an attempt made to reclaim it by a system of shallow 

 open drains. Water usually standing within a foot of the 

 surface, the soil was in a cold, sodden, sour condition, and 

 baked and cracked in time of drought. The yearly produc- 

 tion of this land per acre was only ten or fifteen hundred- 

 weight of a poor quality of hay. 



Mr. Childs first had a complete system of drainage laid out 

 by a competent engineer, which is an absolute necessity on a 



