78 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



County. As the improvements made by them have been fully 

 described in the published transactions of this society, and also 

 Secretary Flint's Report of the Agriculture of Massachusetts I 

 will not repeat them here but will enter at once upon an 

 account of the improvements for which this lot is entered for 

 premium. 



In the spring of 1864, the owner of an adjoining lot set fire 

 to his land, and the fire getting beyond his control, extended to 

 my land and burned over about one-half of this acre. In the 

 autumn of the same year I had a ditch dug on each side of the 

 piece, and as the ditch is of equal benefit to the adjoining lands, 

 I have charged only half of its cost to this experiment. In 

 June, 18G5, I harrowed the portion which had been burned 

 over, furrowed one way and planted with potatoes. I did not 

 plough nor manure it. I hoed them only once and that without 

 ploughing or cultivating. When I dug them the peat was so 

 dry and light, that I could paw them out of the hills with my 

 hands as though tliey were covered with saw-dust. That part 

 of the lot over which the fire did not extend was covered with 

 a growth of flags and bushes and its surface was very uneven 

 there being many places where water would always stand after 

 a heavy rain. I cut the brush and tore up the flag-roots and 

 other tough places with a hand puller, cut off the bogs with the 

 bog knife and filled up all the holes with mud which had been 

 thrown up from the ditch. I ploughed and harrowed the 

 tough spots until they were well loosened, the turf was then 

 allowed to dry for a few days and then burned ; it was then 

 harrowed and burned again. After taking the crop of potatoes 

 from the other part I spread the potato vines on the ground 

 and burned the whole lot again. These repeated burnings 

 left the surface level and in a good condition. The following 

 winter I carted on one hundred and twenty-five loads of twenty 

 bushels each, of coarse sand, and spread it evenly over the 

 surface ; the expense of carting and spreading the sand was 

 twenty cents per load. In the spring of 1866, 1 harrowed the 

 piece thoroughly so as to get the sand well mixed with the peat, 

 and sowed a portion of it with barley and tlie balance with oats, 

 sowing twenty quarts of grass seed with the grain. The grain 

 did not fill out very well and I cut it early for fodder of which 

 there were two tons. Upon taking off the grain crop it 



