SOLON ROBINSON, 1849 251 



Notwithstanding this sum looks so enormous, let us 

 see if the per contra will not show a better balance than 

 the preceding account. 



Contra. 



For an average of 2 tons per acre of Timothy, 

 red-top, and clover hay, upon seven acres for 

 50 years, (a low estimate, supposing it is all 

 the time in grass, and that is 700 tons,) worth 

 $10 a ton, $ 7,000 



The pasturage is worth 50 cents per acre per an- 

 num, 175 



The dirt from the ditches and ashes from the 

 bogs, to put upon the old gravelly hills around, 

 is worth nearly as much as it cost to dig it, but 

 say only 25 



$ 7,200 



The balance then will be $6,064 in favor of the im- 

 provement. 



In fact, I have seen, during the present trip, a hundred 

 just such tracts of land as the one described above, so 

 far as facility of draining is concerned, and at present 

 worthless. Now, is it not singular, shrewd as these Yan- 

 kees are, that they should continue, generation after gen- 

 eration, to pole out the hay from their old bog meadows, 

 and plow and plant some of the richest natural soil upon 

 their farms, that does not produce half a fair crop, for 

 want of a few under drains, and that, too, in many places 

 where the surface is covered with loose stones, that would 

 serve admirably well for materials to build the drains 

 with? But these people do not read. Nay, they do not 

 plow. "Do not plow?" Nay, they do not plow. The 

 little scratching that they give the land is unworthy of 

 name of plowing. They will actually argue, that to plow 

 deep will ruin the land, as it turns up the poor, unpro- 

 ductive earth. As for subsoil plowing, it is to them a 

 sealed volume. We read in books and newspapers, daily, 



