386 DITCHING SALT MARSHES. 



which cannot be ditched, and greatly improved, by the 

 introduction of a better quality of grasses than those 

 usually found there. The following statement of one 

 of the most intelligent practical farmers of the country 

 will show what may be done in this direction : 



The marsh was one which never had been ditched. 

 "I purchased it," says he, " in 1840, which year it pro- 

 duced rather less than half a ton per acre of poor, 

 short, wiry hay, worth but little more than the cost of 

 cutting and curing. In the autumn of that year, I hired 

 faithful laborers, well skilled in the business, to cut 

 ditches over the whole lot, two rods apart, eight inches 

 wide and three feet deep ; the sods taken out were laid 

 in piles, to prevent the tide from washing them away. 

 The two following winters, they were taken upon a 

 sled to the cattle-yard, where they remained until the 

 roots of grass contained in them were decayed, so as 

 to break in pieces readily. For manure, and as an 

 absorbent, they are as valuable as the best of meadow 

 muck or peat. I paid for ditching the entire lot ninety 

 dollars ; more than one hundred cords of sods were 

 dug out and carted away, which I consider worth as 

 much to me as the sum paid for ditching. They were 

 placed in the barn-yard, in a compact form, to insure 

 a proper degree of moisture and cause a speedy 

 decomposition, and afterwards mixed with animal 

 manures. 



" Three years after ditching, the produce was double, 

 full one ton per acre was cut, of an improved qual- 

 ity, since which it has annually increased. This year 

 the produce, as estimated by good judges, was two tons 

 per acre, including about five tons of second crop, cut 

 from the best part of the marsh. As an evidence of 

 the quantity cut this year, I would state that the prod- 

 uce has been sold for three hundred dollars in cash, 



