87 / 



plete report on it by the Es!?cx Agricultural Society's com- 

 mittee on underdraining, with a diagram of the Avork, was 

 published in the society's volume of transactions for 1870. ■ It 

 may be well to add here that this land is entirely unlike either 

 of the pieces previously mentioned, having presented originally 

 a broken surface of knobs and of pond-holes, Avith numerous 

 springs. It consequently required a different treatment to re- 

 claim it, and in place of the encircling "catch-water ditches,'*' 

 previously described, it was so thoroughly under-drained as to 

 take off its own spring water. At the time of the committee's 

 visit this piece was covered with a heavy growth of oats and of 

 wheat (after a crop of corn, sixty bushels to the acre), which 

 had been sown with grass-seed, and top-dressed with ashes 

 and bone dust. Here was a visible example of the judicious 

 employment of capital, by which a comparatively barren, wet 

 pasture had been converted into a level, dry, fertile field. 



The dry uplands of the " Appleton Farm" are in the main 

 treated as similar land On other New England farms is treated. 

 The committee saw ten acres in corn, three in potatoes, and 

 two in ruta-baga, with say half an acre each in mangel-wurt- 

 zels, and carrots and cabbages — all of Avhich it is intended shall 

 be consumed on the farm. These crops all looked Avell, and 

 Avere free from Aveeds. 



Upon some pieces of light ujjland, far from the barn, Mr. 

 Aj)pleton has tried the plan of top-dressing grass Avith " com- 

 mercial manures," but the results have not been satisfactory, 

 and do not indicate that such treatment is profitable. He is 

 noAv trying another plan, A'iz : He ploAved up, two years ago, 

 a piece of light plains, manured it, planted it Avith corn in the 

 usual Avay, and afterAvards laid it doAvn to grass. This grass 

 was not moAved, but left for sheep to feed upon, to see if A\ith 

 the fair start of feed Avhich this treatment Avould afford the 

 sheep, they Avould imi)rove the land, Avhile they fed themselves. 

 He intends, after three or four years of this feeding,- to turn 

 under the sod, and to plant corn and ruta-bagas Avithout ma- 

 nure. We sliall see Avith Avhat results. 



