468 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Oct. 



not have pointed out these routes for the ditches, 

 for where they united, nearest the river, there 

 was a swell in the land, making the surface high- 

 er than where the ditches started ; hut the instru- 

 ments showed that just beyond the swell the 

 land was low enough for the purposes of drain- 

 age, and they also showed how deep the cut must 

 be to pass the water through properly to the riv- 

 er. So much for the benefits of an accurate sur- 

 vey when attempting to drain lowlands. 



The ditches thus completed and the land re- 

 lieved of stagnant water, about ten acres were 

 each year plowea up, manured with compost, and 

 laid down' with the cultivated grasses ; and the 

 third year from the commencement nearly the en- 

 tire meadow had been reclaimed. After plowing a 

 piece, and before manuring and seeding it, the 

 occasional slight hollows were smoothed up to 

 the general surface, by removing earth into them 

 from the surrounding crowning places, with the 

 oxen and scraper ; so that no portion of the flood 

 water should remain on the land, but all might 

 readily pass off with the falling of the river. The 

 breaking of the swale sod was not an easy task. 

 The coarse water grasses had held possession of 

 the land for a long period, and formed a strong, 

 thickly-rooted and ugly sward, which could not 

 be turned at all by a plow of the usual size. Ac- 

 cordingly a very large plow was procured, which, 

 drawn by six oxen, went entirely below the roots 

 of the grasses, and turned up deep, wide furrows, 

 laying them over, in spite of their stifi"ness. 



The condition of the land has been very much 

 changed by draining and reclaiming. The waters 

 are off at once on the receding of a flood, loaded 

 teams can be driven anywhere on the land, and 

 large crops of good hay have been taken off". On 

 a few acres, however, of the lowest portions of 

 the meadow first plowed and seeded, the water 

 grasses are coming in. Indeed, it was not ex- 

 pected that the land could be wholly tamed of its 

 wild, sour nature, at once, but rather that in the 

 course of time, after several turns at plowing, 

 manuring and reseeding, this wildness would be 

 mostly taken out of it, and the water grasses, 

 finding the conditions so modified, would nearly 

 or quite disappear. 



The lower portion of the meadow seeded down 

 six years ago, where the wild grasses are getting 

 in, is now being plowed up and reseeded, turn- 

 ing it over ten to twelve inches deep with the 

 Universal Plow, rigged for double, or sod and 

 subsoil plov,-ing, and drawn by three yokes of ox- 

 en. The furrows turn over kindly now, and the 

 oxen have good firm footing and a comparatively 

 easy task. The land has evidently settled down 

 several inches since it was first ditched and 

 plowed. When plowed six years ago, this low- 

 est ground, in particular, was very boggy, sticky 

 and diificult to overturn, and the oxen were con- 

 tinually miring ankle to knee deep in the fur- 

 rows, and had a laborious job of it. 



After plowing, the land is to be harrowed fine, 

 and some day this week will be stocked down 

 with a mixture of fowl-meadow, herds-grass and 

 red-top seeds, bushed in. We expect to be able 

 to give a more permanently good quality to the 

 hay produced on this land, by stocking it in part 

 with the fowl-meadow grass. Several little 

 patches of this grass have come in on the mea- 

 dow, and it seems to occupy the soil whenever it 



gets foothold, in spite of floods or the coarse wa- 

 ter grasses. It also yields a large swath to the 

 scythe, and a very superb quality of hay. It is 

 hoped that when the herds-grass and red-top af- 

 ter a while begin to disappear, the fowl-meadow 

 grass will spread and occupy their place, and 

 shut out the poorer wild grasses. I intend to 

 observe the operation of the thing pretty closely, 

 and may perhaps hereafter have something of in- 

 terest to communicate about it. My impression 

 now is, that the fowl-meadow grass may be suc- 

 cessfully cultivated on low moist lands, and af- 

 ford surer and larger crops of hay than herds- 

 grass and red-top. The greatest difficulty, at first, 

 in attempting to cultivate this grass, will be to 

 procure the seed. A large seed-store in Boston 

 was applied to a few days since for fowl-meadow 

 seed, and could only furnish two bushels. Mr. 

 Wether«ll, however, informs us in the Farmer, in 

 his recent interesting and valuable essay upon 

 this grass, that the seed is gathered and sold con- 

 siderably in the neighborhood of Portland, Me. 



August and September form the most favora- 

 ble portion of the year for draining and reclaim- 

 ing wet lands. Haying and the eai-ly harvest be- 

 ing mostly finished, at this season, there is time 

 for draining operations, and the ground is gen- 

 erally drier and more accessible and easily worked 

 than at any other time in the year. Almost every 

 farm has a larger or smaller tract of wet land up- 

 on it. Such land is generally the richest portion 

 of the farm, and when once drained and brought 

 under tillage, produces very large crops of grass 

 certainly, and often of corn and other grain ; 

 while it requires much less manure to keep it 

 productive than is necessary to bring up the worn- 

 out dry lands to anything like the same fertility, 

 or to sustain them in high heart after they have 

 been made productive. 



Improvements upon these wet lands generally 

 prove profitable investments — more so than to 

 expend the same money in buying more land. 

 They in effect add to the territorial extent of the 

 farm already owned. I have obsei'ved several in- 

 stances where these improvements have made it 

 necessary to provide more than double the barn 

 room to store the crops of the farm than was 

 orignally needed, and that too without any increase 

 of acres. These lands are often so situated as to 

 receive the wash of many acres of surrounding 

 lands, and that wash, after the wet land has been 

 reclaimed, is all turned to the best account. There 

 is a peculiar satisfaction, also, in looking upon 

 smiling fields, productive of the finest of grain 

 and grass, that one has by his own efforts re- 

 deemed from a wild and perhaps pestiferous mo- 

 rass. He feels that he has added to the wealth 

 of the country, as well as to his own resources. 



The amount of outlay which may be necessaiy 

 or politic in reclaiming swale lands, depends up- 

 on several circumstances, such as the constitu- 

 tion of the soil and subsoil, the way in which the 

 water comes upon it, the location of the farm as 

 affecting the value of land and products, and the 

 price of labor. Some lands require thorough un- 

 derdraining, with stone or tile, to give them that 

 measure of dryness and warmth that shall bring 

 out their full power of production. But they may 

 be located where land and products are too cheap 

 to warrant so large an outlay ; and perhaps a 

 more superficial drainage may be so well planned 



