368 



shall be a substitute. When the springs will permit, we cut 

 our ditches parallel with each other, and thus form lands which 

 may be readily ploughed after the ground has been filled with 

 grass roots. These meadows grow harder continually as we 

 continue to grow the better grasses in them, and we often find 

 it practicable to use the plongh as in case of higher lands when 

 the sod requires to be subverted. Wild grasses will invariably 

 creep in ere many years elapse, and we subdue them by plough- 

 ing about the first of September and seeding again on the fur- 

 row." 



10. A successful instance of this same kind of improvement in 

 Essex county has been reported to me by Wm. Osborn, of Lynn, 

 and is so creditable to him for its exactness that I think proper 

 to annex it. 



Four acres of peat meadow in Saugus. Mr. Osborn com- 

 menced in 1837 by paring and burning ; but finding it likely to 

 be too wet, and thinking this method was at the expense of the 

 soil, he turned it over and left it to the action of the frost in the 

 winter. In the spring had the whole surface chopped fine with 

 sharp grub-hoes for after-crops ; cut four ditches across it, with 

 a sufficient outlet to keep the water down at least fifteen inch- 

 es from the surface. The ditches were four feet wide and three 

 deep. The land was formerly covered with a heavy growth of 

 pine and maple, the stumps of which remained ; audit was now 

 covered with a young growth of maples, alders, dog-wood, &c. 

 The process of paring and getting out the stumps was going on 

 at the same time ; and all the work was done by hand, as the 

 bottom was too miry for cattle to assist in removing the stumps. 

 I am best satisfied, Mr. Osborn remarks, with that part where 

 the sods were burned. I find, by throwing it into beds or ridg- 

 es that I have no trouble from the water; and unless the sea- 

 sons prove very wet, the land may be cultivated with any root 

 crop whatever. 



I annex a sketch of the different plots divided into seven 

 parts by ditches. 



1. Q,uarter acre pared and burned and ashes spread. The sods 



