crop« of corn, potatoes, oats, turnips, carrots, cabbages, Hun- 

 garian grass, rape, &c., &c. 



Mr. Appleton's chief aim, in liis plans for improving liis 

 farm (as he explained them to the committee) , is to show what 

 €an be done in reclaiming low, wet lands, which he regards as 

 the main future dependence of the farmers of New England 

 for supplies of hay. His frrst step, after having had tlie 

 low grounds of his farm surveyed, and the levels accurately 

 taken, was to have abroad open ditch dug through them, Avith 

 a sufficient fall to carry off the water emptied into it from 

 smaller ditches and covered drains. This main ditch, wliich 

 must be over a mile in length, and which has an average depth 

 of at least three feet, is the foundation of Mr. Appleton's im- 

 provements, as it enables him to thcroughly drain all of tlie 

 meadows through which it passes. 



Ha^ ing secured an outlet for il c water, Mr. Appleton sur- 

 rounded a meadow of ten acres with a "catch- water ditch," 

 aay, eighteen inches deep, leading, at long intervals, into the 

 main ditch. This meadow had been kept constantly wet by 

 springs in the headlands which surround it, l)ut the plan of 

 drainage was so successful that it was easily plowed and laid 

 down to grass. The committee walked OAcr a part of this 

 meadow, which was plowed last fall for the first time, and 

 sowed with herd's grass in December. It had received a top- 

 dressing after the sowing, of a compost of loam from under pas- 

 ture walls, mixed with ashes at the rate of thirty Ijushels to the 

 HCve, and a small quantity of barn-yard manure. The commit- 

 tee differed in their judgment of the yield then on the ground, 

 estimating- it at from two tons to two and a half tons to the acre. 



A piece of three acres, comprising a part of the above men- 

 tioned ten acres, was a deep muck bed, and could not be plowed 

 in the condition in which it then was, four years ago. Mr. A. 

 consecpiently determined to try the experiment of covering it 

 with gravel, which was done by his farm hands and teams, in 

 the leisure days of winter. The following spi-ing it was sowed 

 with timothy — the seed started, but there was no crop worth 



