THE TIM BUNKER PAPERS. 207 



swamp, and I guess you won t make any thing else eout 

 on t if you keep tryin from neow till doomsday.&quot; 



&quot; Well, Deacon, you see nothing else grew here but such 

 things, and sour grasses, four years ago, and since I put 

 in the drains, and stocked it down, we have had less of 

 them every year. There is a hundred pounds of good 

 hay where there is one pound of such stuff. You can not 

 expect sile that is full of old brake roots, and rushes, to 

 say nothing of foul seed, never to show a sign of the old 

 vegetation.&quot; 



&quot; Nothin will come of it. You never can make upland 

 where the Almighty has made a swamp.&quot; 



&quot;That s so,&quot; responded Jake. &quot;Better take $10 an 

 acre, and trade back. It will be all moss another year 

 see if it ain t.&quot; 



This talk of a July morning shows pretty well the 

 prejudices of some of my neighbors against draining. 

 They want to find an excuse for doing nothing, and thus 

 set up a standard for reclaimed land, that they would not 

 think of applying to land that needs no draining. If it 

 shows any remains of the old grasses and rushes, it is, of 

 course, going back again to swamp. If it don t continue 

 to bear three tuns of hay to the acre, they hail you with, 

 &quot; I knew it would be so ; the land is running out.&quot; 



Now I hold that we ought not to expect any more of 

 reclaimed land than we do of any good upland. If it per 

 forms as well as that, it is clear enough that draining pays. 

 No upland that I have ever cultivated will keep up a yield 

 of two or three tuns to the acre, without manure. It is very 

 good land that yields a tun and a half three years after 

 laying down. I never expected the horse-pond lot to do 

 any better, but it has disappointed me in this respect, and 

 has held out better without manure than any undrained 

 land upon the farm. I should have given it a top-dressing 

 last year, if I had not wanted to see how it would hold 

 out. The yield was quite two tuns, though Jake Frink 



