174 WORCESTER SOCIETY. 



at this time entitled to the highest premium. They recom- 

 mend that he should receive the sum of ten dollars, and a copy 

 of Colman's European Agriculture. He will, therefore, have 

 an opportunity of again becoming a competitor for the highest 

 reward, and a future committee, acting under more definite in- 

 structions from the trustees, will be enabled to correct the errors 

 of their predecessors. 



JOHN W. LINCOLN, Chairman. 



William Howe's Statement. 



About eighteen years since, I came in possession of the Reed 

 farm, containing one hundred and sixty acres, being the same 

 which the committee passed over. This farm was in a very 

 bad condition at that time ; many parts very rocky, others suf- 

 fering by stagnant water, and others run up to brush. Having, 

 then, a little capital, on the score of experience, with much 

 more confidence than strength, I commenced operations. About 

 the first thing done, was to ditch an extensive interval, and, to 

 considerable extent, to bog the same. 



I will here mention one little experiment, and its results by 

 itself. At one end of a pasture I had about one acre of very 

 wet, boggy land, the grass of which I bargained to a neighbor 

 for fifty cents. After cutting it, he complained to me that it 

 was not worth cutting. After looking at it again, being of the 

 same opinion, I relinquished to him the price. Soon after, 

 about the middle of August, I hired an Irishman to cut a small 

 ditch around it, and another to drain it into the main ditch 

 near it, previously cut through said interval. It was now bog- 

 ged, and the bogs piled in heaps half as large as common hay- 

 cocks. After three weeks of dry weather, fire was set to the 

 heaps, which was easily done, as there was much grass attach- 

 ed to them, and in a little more than a day's time, they were 

 all in ashes, which I spread equally. I then sowed Timothy, 

 red-top and clover, and harrowed in, whole expense being fif- 

 teen dollars ; and the next year, Isold the hay from it for thirty 

 dollars, there being by weight, three tons. The same ground 

 continues to this time to bear as much, though not quite as 



