SECRETARY'S REPORT. 75 



write will in the main be a relation of my experience and that 

 of some intelligent neighbors. 



Colonel Enoch Marsh, of Pelham, N. H., having possession 

 of a swamp of seven acres, on the south border of which was a 

 sand-hill, it occurred to the mind of said Marsh that the swamp 

 aforesaid could and ought to be reclaimed. Prior to my 

 knowledge of the land, it had been covered with pine timber, 

 and when the reclaiming operations commenced, stumps, has- 

 socks, dwarf maples, birches, alders, blueberry bushes, dog- 

 wood and other pests entirely covered the surface. Ditches 

 were dug round the piece, drawing the water some thirty 

 inches below the surface ; brush cut and burned on the soil ; 

 hassocks torn up and used for filling holes, or burned, as was 

 most convenient. Large roots were cut off round the stumps, 

 which latter were pried up, dragged off, and some hundred rods 

 of valuable and durable fence made therewith. There being a 

 scarcity of stone in the vicinity, the stumps came in very oppor- 

 tunely. Pine and other roots, all running on or near the sur- 

 face, were cleared off with comparative ease, and good fuel 

 enough procured to supply the family nearly five years. The 

 surface having been " smoothed down," the base of the sandy 

 hill all along the margin of the former " bog " was wheeled 

 on, and carted on in winter when frozen so as to bear a team, 

 in quantity sufficient to even the surface. The ashes from the 

 materials burned served as a sweetener, thereby rendering the 

 use of manure necessary only in small quantities. 



"With a biennial light dressing with compost, large crops of 

 grass and hay are produced. Being aware that the modus 

 operandi of draining and reclaiming soils, similar in character 

 to that described, is pretty generally understood and somewhat 

 extensively practiced, we desire to invite attention to a class of 

 soils, which have been and are too much neglected. In the 

 northern portion of Middlesex County are many tracts of land 

 at an altitude far above our bogs and hollows, " high lands " 

 they are frequently called, which are much too wet, and may 

 be vastly improved by drains. Soils of that character usually 

 present a growth of alders, hardback, laurel, and frequently 

 ferns or other herbage equally valueless. Rocks, too, gener- 

 ally abound. Another indication of tenacity is, where there 

 are depressions in the soil, or slight basins, water will often 



