76 GN RECLAIMED MEADOWS. 



The hay this year has all been weighed at the town scales. 

 The first cutting in July Aveighed a few pounds less than seven 

 and a half tons, and the second in September a few pounds 

 over three and a half tons, making eleven tons this year, and 

 the product of the two years eighteen tons. The manure and 

 the ashes, exclusive of the loam from the cellar, which has 

 been put upon this land within two years, amounts to twenty 

 cords, and including tlie expense of carting and spreading, has 

 cost one hundred dollars. I paid the three Irishmen for labor 

 one hundred and fifty dollars, and estimate the labor and board 

 of my man at twenty dollars more, making the whole expense 

 of reclaiming and manuring amount to two hundred and seven- 

 ty dollars. From 183G to 1848, this piece of land was worth 

 nothing, except as a deposit of muck to increase the compost 

 heap. The annual crop of hay would not pay the cost of har- 

 vesting. And now, from your personal inspection of this re- 

 claimed meadow, I think you will agree with me in saying, 

 that for pleasantness of location and convenience of access to 

 my buildings, it can hardly be exceeded ; and that at two hun- 

 dred dollars per acre, which it will now sell for, it would be a 

 better investment under good management hereafter, than any 

 of our eight per cent Railroad Stocks. 

 Wenham, Oct. 5, 1850. 



CAL^TN LOCKE'S STATEMENT. 

 The reclaimed meadow, containing one and nine-sixteenths 

 acres, submitted to your consideration, was in 1842 a thick al- 

 der swamp, flooded with water full three-fourths of the year, in 

 the winter to a considerable depth. I commenced working on 

 it in November or December of that year by cutting two ditch- 

 es through the length of it, one on each side, receiving for my 

 pay the alders growing on the margin of the same about one 

 rod in width, without any reference to making it a mowing 

 field, but merely to drain the ground. Before I had progress- 

 ed far I became convinced of the prospective productiveness of 



