WORCESTER SOCIETY. 183 



thrown by the first dam, out upon the mowing, it returned to 

 the ditch, to be again thrown out by the next, and so on ; 

 which answers a question of the chairman of the committee, 

 as to what means I used to prevent the water returning to the 

 ditch. And here I will remark, that this whole interval, con- 

 taining in all, (which belongs to me,) some fifty acres, by 

 means of the ditches, except daring storms, and rains, in a day 

 or two after are perfectly dry enough for cultivation. The 

 grass upon it is very abundant — much of it three tons to the 

 acre, though the greater share would fall below. The process 

 of temporary irrigation is all the application I have ever made, 

 except to the fourteen acre lot before alluded to. I do not ex- 

 aggerate when I say, that I have increased my grasses, quantity 

 and quality, five hundred per cent, since I owned the farm. 



I have also brought into mowing, twenty-five acres of other 

 land, mostly from almost intolerably rocky pasture. I com- 

 menced some twelve years since, a few acres at a time, by pre- 

 paring stone for drawing, by digging them, or such as were to 

 be chained out, just doing enough to them with spade, crow- 

 bar and lever, to give an advantage for the chain. Then I 

 commenced the wall, by drawing for the bottom the large rocks, 

 which were generally of a size to average three feet wide, then 

 topping with suitable stone, making what is called a balance 

 or single wall, four feet high, the stone being such as necessa- 

 rily to make a heavy wall. For this kind of wall, (the best for 

 partition walls in the world,) three men and two yoke of oxen 

 could draw and lay from eight to nine rods a day. In this way, 

 I have followed it up from year to year, until I have built some 

 six hundred rods of wall on all parts of my present farm. 

 These lots, after being walled, needed, very considerable por- 

 tions of them, to be drained. I dug trenches in a manner to 

 cut off springs, two feet wide and one and a half to three feet 

 deep, as I found necessary, and stoned below ploughing depth, 

 and covered, first with straw, and then with earth. These lots 

 gave fine crops of corn, &c., until in a condition to seed, since 

 which, they have been netting the interest of from one to two 

 hundred and fifty dollars per acre. 



It has been my study, through the whole year, how to im- 



