MR. newhall's address. 7 



in two or three years, unless it was constantly warmed with manure^ 

 But by using the subsoil plough, breaking up and loosening the soil 

 to a greater depth, the draining may be facilitated. 



Our wet meadows and swamps where the mud or peat is from two 

 to ten feet in depth, if capable of being drained at a reasonable ex- 

 pense are of much greater value for reclamation, than those of a 

 shallow soil; as by sinking the ditches to a proper depth, they may 

 easily be made as dry as may be desirable, for the growth of grain 

 vegetables and grasses. 



These lands of deep soil, are mostly incapable of being ploughed 

 at the commencement of improvement, and it is bad policy so to do 

 where they will admit of it. The most economical mode to be 

 adopted as far as my experience enables me to speak, is to clear the 

 surface of grasses and bushes, and cover with sand or gravel, suffic- 

 ient to kill the native growth of vegetation; then manure, and sow 

 with rye and grass if in the autumn, or with oats and grass if in the 

 spring or summer ; for if the grain fails, the roots of the rye or oats 

 will strengthen the surface, and aid the grass in getting root. 



These lands improved in manner aforesaid, without ploughing, 

 continue productive without any additional expense, much longer than 

 those which have been ploughed ; the decomposition of the original 

 growth which has been covered by the top-dressing, furnishing food 

 for the cultivated grasses. By an experiment I made some twenty 

 years since, by the above mode, on one acre, I obtained good crops 

 of hay for eight years in succession, without any dressing ; the 

 nintli season, the crop was some less than a ton ; it was then plough- 

 ed in the fall of that year, and planted the first day of the following 

 June. The sand and peat had become well mixed, Avas very mel- 

 low and easy to till. The acre produced fifty bushels of corn — hav- 

 ing one row of potatoes around the margin. The next year it pro- 

 duced about forty bushels of barley. 



We have an abundance of these lands as yet, in a state of nature, 

 which if reclaimed and rendered as productive as they might be, and 

 our dry lands sufficiently manured from our peat meadows, and 

 swamps, few if any parts of the state, of the same area, would prO' 

 duce more good hay than our own county. 



Our salt marshes which have been a reliable source for stock fod- 

 der, have within a few years been thought less of than formerly. 

 The cattle fed upon the hay grown from them have been represented 



