WORCESTER SOCIETY. 175 



pure English. The result of this gave me great courage to 

 go on. 



Being very desirous to reclaim some old worn out pasture 

 land run up to white birches, white birch laurel, &c., having 

 very little good pasturing at that time to rely upon, 1 suspend- 

 ed, partially, my operations in the interval, and took some 

 twelve acres of this land, and ploughed it the first of Septem- 

 ber, using two yoke of oxen, with a heavy plough, in order to 

 tear up roots. I planted in corn and potatoes the next spring ; 

 this ground I prepared by cross ploughing, after spreading 

 twelve cartloads per acre, and then a good shovel full, in the 

 hill for corn, and I had sixty bushels to an acre. The spring 

 following I sowed with wheat, and seeded for grass ; had twen- 

 ty bushels of wheat to the acre ; the ground had now been 

 pastured about nine years, and continues to be very valuable as 

 such. I have continued to the present time almost every year, 

 to reclaim more or less of old pasture land, in the same manner, 

 with the most encouraging results. I have also used various 

 other means to extend and make more productive, my pasture 

 lands, by ditching those parts which were too wet, by irrigation 

 when they were too dry, and by mowing the brush twice in a 

 year, when I could get time to do so, preferring the months of 

 March, June, August and September ; I think, from experi- 

 ence, the two former the best for killing them out; and I am 

 fully satisfied, from experience, that it is best never to burn the 

 brush on the ground, as they serve a valuable purpose of en- 

 riching the ground, by being allowed to decay upon it. I know 

 it is objected by some, that where heavy brush has been cut, 

 in addition to the trimmings of trees, that they will be in the 

 way of the scythe, at the next cutting True, they will, some- 

 what ; but at the third cutting, they will have mostly decayed. 

 If brush are taken at one season's growth, a man will go over, 

 in mowing them, from two to four acres in a day ; while, if 

 suffered to grow for years, besides running out the grass, it will 

 be the labor of four days, to cut one acre. 



In breaking up all new lands where are small brush, I put 

 the scythe to nothing which the plough would cover, but have 

 been much in the practice, especially where brush are of one 



