52 



Reclaiming Meadow Lands. 



Vol. VIII. 



the cheese are crammed into a small room, 

 without window or any means of ventilation 

 whatever. Cheese being animal matter, 

 can not have too much air. I have noticed 

 for some time, that those dairies that have 

 been kept in a large well-aired room, have 

 been quite sound; and those kept in a clo.^e, 

 sickly room, were either faded or very bad 

 in the flavor. Though cheese should not be 

 kept in too high a temperature, yet they will 

 bear the summer heat tolerably well, pro- 

 vided they have a constant supply of good 

 air. There is no objection to a little artifi- 

 cial heat in winter, from a stove or a fire, 

 but this should always be accompanied with 

 a supply of pure air. The difficulty to con- 

 tend with is two-fold: first, the want, in 

 many farm houses, of a suitable cheese 

 room ; and, secondly, the prejudices of the 

 dairymaids. They have a long cherished 

 idea in favour of closed doors, and closed 

 windows, and dark rooms. To prevent flies, 

 they sometimes say, is the reason for keep- 

 ing the room dark and close ; but this is the 

 best plan for increasing them, by producing 

 putrid matter in the cheese. And as for 

 flies, a pennyworth of quassia chips, boiled 

 in a pint of water, well sweetened, and put 

 on plates, will kill thousands directly. As 

 I have this week seen several lots of new 

 cheese, in close confined rooms, which, if 

 they are kept for any length of time, are 

 sure to rot, I am the more anxious to warn 

 the cheese-makers in time, now that hot 

 weather is approaching, to open the doors 

 and windows of their cheese rooms ; and, in 

 cases where there are no openings, either to 

 set their husbands or the joiners at work, 

 immediately, to make them. — American Ag- 

 riculturist. 



From the New England Farmer. 

 Keclaiming Meadow lands. 



Gentlemen, — I have made several expe 

 riments in improving wet meadow and peat 

 lands, which I will, as briefly as possible, 

 state to you. 



On land which admits of ploughing, I 

 have planted potatoes on coarse stable ma- 

 nure; after removing the crop, I have sowed 

 winter rye and herds and red-top seed as 

 late as November, and they have always 

 grown well and given good crops. After a 

 few years the grass will degenerate, and I 

 have found unleached wood ashes the best 

 application to invigorate the soil. 



I have spread gravel and the accumula- 

 tions under an old barn floor, on a wet mea- 

 dow, and sown grass seed, and the crop hat- 

 been very heavy. 



In 1839, I ploughed forty poles of peat 



meadow, and planted potatoes on coarse 

 stable manure. I harvested in the fall, sixty 

 bushels of excellent potatoes. The next 

 spring I again ploughed, and applied a com- 

 post of fifteen bushels of bone manure and 

 three cart-loads of loam : on this I raised a 

 arge crop of sugar beets and ruta-baga; 

 one of the former, weighing with the tops, 

 seventeen pounds, and one of the latter, 

 twenty-five pounds. The ground appeared 

 like a rich bed of compost, and I carted 

 from it ten cords, which I spread upon up- 

 land grass. In the fall, one cord of horse 

 manure was ploughed in, and winter rye 

 and grass seed sown. In July, 1841, eight 

 bushels of rye were reaped, and soon after, 

 a good crop of grass. In August, of the 

 same year, a second crop of grass was cut 

 on this piece. This year, the first crop of 

 hay was fifty hundred to the acre, and the 

 second twenty. 



I have drained four other pieces, which 

 were so miry that oxen could not travel 

 over them. The peat for fuel, fiilly pays 

 the expense of ditching. The annual crop 

 before my improvement, was not worth a 

 shilling per acre : it was buckthorn and low 

 bushes. This meadow has been pared with 

 a topping-knife to t!ie depth of three and 

 four inches, according to the depth of the 

 wild grass and roots, then cut into squares 

 of fifteen inches, and inverted. Coarse stable 

 manure has been wheeled on, potatoes drop- 

 ped and covered with the loosest sods. Lit- 

 tle labour is required in hoeing. The crops 

 of potatoes have been good in quantity, and 

 excellent in quality. Till this year, when 

 a part of the meadow was flooded by the 

 heavy rains in June, the crop has been two 

 hundred bushels to the acre. Cabbages and 

 beets have also done well. After securing 

 the crop of potatoes, I have taken off" the 

 loose toppings and used them for compost. 

 The quantity removed is not far from sixty 

 cords to the acre. The toughest and most 

 rooty sods I have burned on the meadow, 

 and spread the ashes, but the ashes so ap- 

 plied, have not equalled my expectations. 

 After removing the sods, the surface was 

 levelled with rakes, and winter rye and 

 grass seed sown. This was on the sixteenth 

 of November. Early in the spring, I spread 

 on the meadow woollen waste, from a carpet 

 factory, and on a part of it, a compost of hen 

 manure and loam. The latter produced a 

 most luxuriant growth. The rye was partly 

 winter-killed, but what survived was rank 

 and heavy. After reaping the rye, more 

 than thirty hundred to the acre, of grass 

 and stubble was mowed, and another crop 

 might have been made, but I preferred to 

 feed it off. ■ 



