730 



FARMERS' RE G I S T £ R . 



[No. 12 



improvements, are wonderful, and his labors have 

 been as profitable as they are admirable. The gen- 

 eral plan ol" drainage is the same on both estates. 

 Mr. Peiiigrew formerly drained into Mr. Collins' 

 canal ; but has since constructed liis own canal, of 

 15 leel width, which he uses in like manner both 

 fir naviijaiion and for propelling mills and other 

 machinery. He cultivates wheat successfully and 

 on a large scale. As I am informed, he is an ex- 

 cellent manager and cultivator, and, besides his 

 swamp improvement here, he has recently drained 

 and brought under good and productive tillage a 

 large tract of the ''body land," and thereby created 

 a fine tiirm, and an entirely new and rich source of 

 agricultural production, if he who merely makes 

 " two blades of grass to grow where one only 

 grew before" is a benefactor to his country and to 

 mankind, how much greater is his service who 

 drains a swamp, or converts a worthless waste 

 into a fertile farm ! 



Mr. Charles Pettigrew, the son, was also from 

 home during the first days of my sojourn at So- 

 merset Place. His return however enabled me 

 to give a slight and rapid glance at his father's 

 lake farm, but which was too much hurried by 

 want of time, and also by bad weather, (or me to 

 attempt doing justice to its description, and there- 

 flire the attempt will not be made. I will merely 

 ofier a few notes on some of the most striking ob- 

 jects. 



The farm of Mr. E. Pettigrew lies alongside of 

 his neighbor's, and their mansions are not half a 

 mile apart. In both, there is the like position o( 

 the buildings near the border of the lake, and the 

 Bame general plan of draina«re. Mr. Peiiigrew's 

 main canals being smaller, (15 feet wide) he re- 

 quires more of them. Accordingly, he has alrea- 

 dy two, parallel to each other, and together about 

 nine miles in length ; and is he about to dig another 

 which will be nearly half as much more. Part of 

 his drained and cleared land was of savanna, as 

 is still the wild land immediately adjacent. The 

 soil of this field is as black, as rich, and seemingly 

 as valuable, as the best swamp. It is now suffer- 

 ing fi-om the access of wafer from the unreclaim- 

 ed savanna, which w\\\ be remedied by the de- 

 siijned canal. But this land has produced 10 bar- 

 rels of corn to the acre, and when the remedy is 

 applied, will do so again. The rotation here is 

 the three-sliilt, without grazing ; or 1st year, corn, 

 2nd, wheat, and 3rd, the natural weeds, which 

 grow so rankly, (6 to 8 It^ethigh, and very strong,) 

 that the three-hoise ploughs, which are used to 

 break up the field lor corn, cannot possibly turn 

 them under without a previous operation. This 

 is efiected by the '* weeding down " process men- 

 tioned in his neighbor's practice. The land is 

 kept always in beds of 6 feet width, with deep and 

 clean water-furrows between. The weeds are 

 cut off by broad hoes, and drawn into the water- 

 furrows, and then well covered by Jhe meeting of 

 the first two furrow-slices, made in reversing the 

 beds. 



The lake side of both the adjoining farms is 

 alike protected by a low dike. This dike, with 

 the bridges across the canals, Ibrms a continuous 

 roan lor two miles along Mr. Collins' farm, and 

 apparently aa much more along Mr. Pettigrew's. 

 TLis roaci keeps near the lake shore, and forms, 

 both by its situation and its decorations, one of the 

 Kioet beautifnl and sxtensive promenades^ either 



for walking or driving, that I have ever known. 

 The road is perfectly level in its course, firm and 

 dry. It is planted throughout on the side Ironj 

 the lake with rows of trees, which are of differ- 

 ent sizes according to the dale ui' the clearing of 

 the fields along which they are planted. One ol 

 these rows, on ."Somerset Place, a mile in length, is 

 of tall and noble sycamores, all of the same age 

 and of very equal size. Another very long row of 

 as large sycamores is on Mr. Pettigrew's part of 

 the road. On another part of his. young cypresses 

 have been left where growing naturally, and 

 where deficient set out, on both sides, so as to lorin 

 an avenue. Between the road and lake is a nar- 

 row and irregular margin, under its natural and 

 the usual swamp growth, among which are some 

 trees of very large size, and others as remarkable 

 lor their grotesque form. 



Neither the road dike nor the margin outside, 

 fringed as it is with trees, could serve as a protec- 

 tion from the violence of the waves, were it not 

 for the shallowness of the lake lor several hundred 

 yards from the shore. On this wide shoal the bil- 

 lows are broken, and their violence expended, be- 

 fore they reach the land. Still, were it not fi)r ar- 

 tificial saleguards, there would be yet left enoush 

 of power in the dashing of the broken and scat- 

 tered spray, to produce great changes and do 

 much damage to the land. This is exhibited 

 along the lake shore where the ewan)p and its fo- 

 rest have not been touched by man. There, the 

 deep indentations of water in some parts of tha 

 shore, and the ragged points of high swamp, 

 wood-bound and delended, stretching out at other 

 places into the lake — with the monuments of more 

 ancient and extensive devastation and change 

 presented in the position and lurms of the old cy- 

 presses which stand alone and still living, though 

 liir out in the lake, or serve to protect liy their 

 roots and spreading base some yet remaining 

 points of swamp — all show the great encroach- 

 ments which the water has made upon the land. 

 After suffering much damage from much slighter 

 operations of this kind on the drained land, and 

 the most strongly constructed defiinces having 

 been found insufficient to resist the waves, Mr. 

 Pettigrew discovered a mode both effectual and 

 cheap, and which is used on both estates at every 

 exposed point, or wherever the bank is so low as 

 to need earth to raise it. The means used are 

 " brush-bars," which are formed in ihe water 

 close to the shore, by merely driving down per- 

 pendicularly a double row of small slakes, the 

 rows two or three feet apart, and the stakes as far 

 apart as will serve to hold the limbs of trees, or 

 any rough and small brush laid between Ihe rows 

 and packed down closely, and rising a little above 

 ordinary high water. The whole is made in the 

 roughest and apparently slightest manner. Still, 

 this feeble barrier serves not only to prevent the in- 

 vasion of the water, but to repel it by forming more 

 land. Perfectly clear as the water usually is, its 

 violent ac'.ion on the bottom in storms renders it 

 muddy; and its sediment is left landward of the 

 brush-bars, in such quantity as to form a consid- 

 erable though slow accretion to the land by the 

 deposite. It may well be conceived that the ob- 

 vious and continual operation of the winds and 

 waves for thousands of years may have greatly 

 enlarged the surface of this and other such lakes, 

 while it also increased the elevation of the swamp 



