402 SELECTIONS FROM ADDRESSES. 



I regret that I cannot make the comparison. It is well 

 known that the reclaiming of bog meadows has been going on, 

 for the last few years, with commendable spirit and gratifying 

 success, all over the Commonwealth, while in many parts, the 

 waste places have been made glad, and the wilderness has bud- 

 ded and blossomed like the rose. 



In the county of Essex, upon three farms offered last year 

 for the Society's premium, were thirty-four acres of reclaimed 

 ■meadow ; while in the county of Middlesex, six farms were 

 offered, containing thirty-three acres, and there were besides, ten 

 applicants for the premiums for such meadows, seven of whom, 

 whose detailed statements are given, had reclaimed twenty- 

 nine acres. In other counties, this subject does not occupy so 

 prominent a place in the reports of their societies. Still these 

 facts indicate, what is otherwise open to observation, that very 

 considerable efforts have been, and are making, in the State, in 

 this way, " to render fresh land serviceable," and that their 

 efforts ha^'^e been successful. Science has been applied in 

 some degree to what is now exciting so much the attention of 

 English farmers, — draining, — and the result has been, the 

 transformation of useless meadows to the most valuable lands, 

 at quite a moderate expense. In one case, in Middlesex, an 

 outlay of $30, exclusive of the ditching, upon eight acres, pro- 

 duced the second year two tons of hay to the acre. In anoth- 

 er, in the same county, an expenditure of $50 per acre, on four 

 acres of swamp which cost $25 an acre, brought the second 

 year, a net return of $201, or more than 66 per cent, of its 

 whole cost. A successful experimenter in Essex declares that 

 he deems his reclaimed lands the most important and profitable 

 part of his farm. 



The issue of experiments like these, is no longer doubtful, 

 and their effect is already quite apparent. They are not, how- 

 ever, of remote date. They have originated with us in that 

 necessity which gives them birth, in a certain stage of progress, 

 in all agricultural communities who have reached it. Where 



bay, or a little over nine-tenths of a ton to the acre. In mowing laud, the ten years have 

 witnessed a slight increase in production. 



The above statistics, and others that might be adduced, if space allowed, are interesting, 

 not only as showing the progress of farming in Massachusetts, but the turn it is taking. 



