ESSEX SOCIETY. 55 



in the seed. For the want of rain, and a top dressing of ma- 

 nure, the grass seed made a poor show that fall. In the fol- 

 lowing March, before the ground had thawed, I purchased 

 twelve cords of manure in my neighborhood, which was carted 

 and spread evenly over the meadow. I then sowed twelve 

 pounds of clover seed, and in July following, I cut what was 

 estimated by competent judges to be five tons of handsome 

 hay, and in September, two tons of rowen. The meadow was 

 now hard and solid enough to bear the team, and the hay was 

 all carted off without difficulty. In November last, I mixed 

 two cords of stable manure, with four cords of loam from a barn 

 cellar I was then digging, and spread the same on about one- 

 third of the lot. In March last, I spread three and a half cords 

 of stable manure on another third, and upon the remaining 

 third, I spread one hundred and fifty bushels of leached ashes. 

 The hay this year has all been weighed at the town scales. 

 The first cutting in July weighed a few pounds less than seven 

 and a half tons, and the second in September, a few pounds 

 over three and a half tons, making eleven tons this year, and 

 the product of the two years, eighteen tons. The manure and 

 the ashes, exclusive of the loam from the cellar, which has 

 been put upon this land within the two years, amounts to twenty 

 cords, and including the expense of carting and spreading, has 

 cost one hundred dollars. I paid the three Irishmen, for labor, 

 one hundred and fifty dollars, and estimate the labor and board of 

 my man at twenty dollars more, making the whole expense of 

 reclaiming and manuring amount to two hundred and seventy 

 dollars. From 1836 to 1848, this piece of land was worth 

 nothing, except as a deposit of muck to increase the compost 

 heap. The annual crop of hay would not pay the cost of har- 

 vesting. And now, from your personal inspection of this re- 

 claimed meadow, I think you will agree with me in saying, 

 that for pleasantness of location and convenience of access to 

 my buildings, it can hardly be exceeded ; and that at two hun- 

 dred dollars per acre, which it will now sell for, it would be a 

 better investment under good management hereafter, than any 

 of our eight per cent, railroad stocks. 

 Wenham, Oct. 5, 1850. 



