MIDDLESEX SOCIETY. 133 



The piles, as you saw, were some of them six or seven feet 

 high, composed of this fuel and the small stumps that were the 

 most easily dug. All the large stumps were saved for fencing 

 material, as they will last for fifty years in a fence, and are laid 

 up with less than half the cost of stone wall. 



Most of the stumps were pried out of the ground with levers, 

 some were drawn out with oxen. These stumps in piles, prob- 

 ably cover one-tenth of the ground ; the vacancies between the 

 piles were sown with herds grass and red-top late in Septem- 

 ber, 1849, and the grass but scarcely appeared above ground in 

 the fall, but in April last, clover and herds grass and red-top 

 were all sown and left to take root as they could. 



The first crop this year had many weeds in it ; but the sec- 

 ond was very pure, and I am confident I can harvest here, next 

 summer, two tons per acre of pure hay, for, on another part of 

 the swamp, that had been no better prepared in 1848, we cut 

 as large a quantity of pure hay this season. 



You will understand that no manure whatever has been used 

 on this land, with the exception of the ashes made from the 

 stumps, &c., and that no gravel or earth has been applied. I 

 have inserted a pole to the depth of ten feet in many places ; 

 the soil, therefore, is principally vegetable matter, and needs 

 no manure from the barn. 



I mean to burn the heaps of wood, stumps and peat, as soon 

 as we have a week of dry weather, and spread the ashes over 

 the ground already seeded, and when all is burnt away, I shall 

 sow seed where the heaps now stand. 



The cost of clearing an acre of this land, and removing the 

 stumps, is thirty-five dollars per acre ; the land, when cleared, 

 is worth one hundred dollars per acre for hay; if it lay near my 

 buildings, it would be worth much more, as nearly two tons 

 per acre may be calculated on for five years to come. 



Framingham, Sept. 4, 1850. 



Joh7t H. Wheeler^s Statement. 



The piece of reclaimed meadow, which I enter for premium, 

 contains about four acres. I came into possession of it in 

 1827, and when I mowed the grass in July of that year, the 



