VOL. SXt. NO. 3'3. 



AND HORTICULTURAL REGISTER. 



251 



Inmls, wlicro llipy can be drained nt a reasonnhle 

 expense, are nuiv wnrtli from fi'ty to one Imrulrcd 

 dollars per acre, and all doubts as to the utility of" 

 redeeminfT these lands from tlie mortgages of wa- 

 ter, bushes, &,c., under which they have so \ong 

 been lyinp, have passed nway, as the whole ex- 

 pense of rendering them productive, exclusive of 

 draininfT, according to statements made by several 

 gentlemen who have kept accur:it<; accounts of the 

 cost for 'nhiT, manure, &c., has lifcn reimbursed 

 by the crops of one or two years nt most, r\nd in 

 some instances including the cost of the land and 

 draining. See Mr Osborn's statements in the Re- 

 ports of the Society in I808 and \S-VJ. The lime 

 seems to have passed by ivhen prejudice and wunt 

 of confidence in the success of the undertaking 

 shall, as heretofore, prevent reclaiming and colli- 

 vatin? these lands; and hearing farmers speak up- 

 on this subject at the present time, it will hardly 

 be credited thnt some thirty or forty years ago, a 

 man who should have undertaken to drain a niece 

 of meadow land, and to have carried on sand, loam 

 or gravel, for the purpose of rendering it produc- 

 tive in grain or the best of grasses, would have 

 been laughed and sneered at, as ivas Noah of old 

 when he built the ark. 



The committee, having viewecJ^Mr King's mea- 

 dow and examined his statements, recommend the 

 Society's first premium of twenty dollars be award- 

 ed to him. 



AS.\ T. NRWHALL, 



ALr.KN purr-iAM, 



• RICHARD PUILLIPS.Jr. 



Daniel P. King's Statement. 

 To the Committee on Reclniming Meadow Lands : 



Gf.ntlemen — I have made several experiments 

 in in:proving wet meadow and peat lands which I 

 will, as briefly as possible, state to you. 



On land which admits of plowing, I have plant- 

 ed potatoes on coarse stable manure; after remfiv- 

 ing the crop, I have sowed winter rye and herds 

 and red-lop 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 nnleached wood ashes the best application 

 to inviii-orate the soil. 



I have spread gravel and the accumulations un- 

 der an old barn floor, on a wet meadow, and sown 

 grass seed, and the crop has been very heavy. 



In 1839, I plowed forty polBS of peat meadow, 

 and planted potatoes on coarse stable manure. I 

 harvesled in the fall sixty bushels of excellent po- 

 tatoes. The next spring I again plowed, and ap- 

 plied a compost of fifteen bushels of hone manure 

 and throe cartloads of loam : on this I raised a 

 large crop of sugar beets and ruta baga ; one of 

 the former, weighing with the lops, seventeen 

 pounds, and one of the latter, tweiityfive pounds. 

 The ground appeared like a rich bed of compost, 

 and I carted from it ten cords, which I spread upon 

 upland grass. In the fall, one cord of horse ma- 

 nure was plowed 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 fully pays the expense of ditching, 



'I'he annual crop before my improvement, was not 

 worth a shilling per aero: it was huck-tliorn and 

 low bushes. This meadow has been pared with a 

 topping knife to the depth of three aiul tour inches, 

 according to the depth of the wild gra.ss and roots, 

 then cut into squares of fifteen inches and invert- 

 ed. Coarse stable manure has been wheeled on, 

 potatoes dropped and covered with the loosest sods. 

 Little labor is required in hoeing. The crops of 

 potatoes have been good in quantity, and excellent 

 in quality. Till this year, when a |)art of the 

 meadow was flooded by the heavy rains in .Tune, 

 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 ofTtlio 

 loose toppings and used them for compost. Tl;e 

 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, bvit 

 the ashes so applied have not equalled [ny expec- 

 tations. 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 wool- 

 len waste from a carpet factory, and on a part of 

 it, a compost of hen manure and loam. The lat- 

 ter 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, aiul nnnlhi^r crop might have been made, 

 hut I preferred to feed it off. 



'I'he present season I have treated two parcels 

 in the same manner, except that I have sown foul 

 iTieadow with the herds grass and red-top, and I 

 have not sown rye, for I find that ordinarily the 

 grass will be forward enough to mow the summer 

 after sowing in the fall. I had doubts of the ex- 

 pediency of sowing so late as November, but my 

 success has encouraged me to repeat the experi- 

 ment. I have a compost of loam and stable ma- 

 nure, which I intend to spread on my reclaimed 

 meadows. I consider them the most profitable 

 land for grass, and the toppings removed, afford a 

 rich contribution to the barn-yard, pig. pen, and 

 compost heap. 



'I'ho quantity of land on which I have made ex- 

 periments, exceeds three acres. 

 Respectfully submitted, 



DANIEL P. KING. 



Danvers, JVov. 1, 1842. 



The Dry Rot. — This disease (so called) in lim- 

 ber, says a writer in London's Architectural Maga- 

 zine, ought to be designated a decomposition oj 

 wood by its own internal juices, which have becoino 

 vitiated for want of a free circulation of air. If 

 you rear a piece of timber in an upright position 

 in the open air, it will last for ages. Put another 

 piece of the same tree into a ship or house, where 

 there is no access to the fresh air, und ere long it 

 will bo decomposed. But should you have painted 

 the piece of wood which you placed in an upright 

 position, it will not last long, because the paint 

 having stopped up its pores, the imprisoned juices 

 have become vitiated, and caused the wood to rot. 

 Nine times in ten, wood is painted too soon. 



For Husbands. — A man's house should be his 

 earthly paradise. It should be, of all other spots, 

 that which he leaves with most regret, and to which 

 he returns with most delight. And in order that it 

 may be so, it should be his aim to provide every 

 thing convenient and comfortable for his wife. 

 With every provision he can possibly make, her's 

 will be a life of care and toil. She is the sentinel 

 who can seldom, if ever, be relieved. Others may 

 sleep, but if there be one who must watch, it is 

 she. She ought, therefore, to be furnished with 

 every comfort within the means of her husband. 



Bad M:ws for the Tailors. — Some of iheiBritish 

 manufacturers are endeavoring to bring out coats 

 and trowsers woven in the frame, and it is said 

 they are quite sanguine of ultimately accomplish- 

 ing their purpose. They will, perhaps, next at- 

 tempt to manufacture persons to wear them, which 

 may Jbe necessary in order to get their wares to 

 " fit." — Selected. 



To Cure Sheepskins with the Wool on. — Take a 

 t.iblc spoonful of alum and two of saltpetre; pul- 

 verize and mix well together ; sprinkle the powder 

 on the fiosh side of the skin, and lay the two flesh 

 sides together, (that is, with the wool outside.) 

 Then fold up the sl;in as tight as you can, and 

 hang it in a dry place ; in two or three days, or as 

 soon as it is dry, take it down, and scrape it with a 

 blunt knife till clean and supple. This completes 

 the process, and makes you a most excellent saddle 

 cover. If when you kill sheep you treat the skina 

 this way, you can get more for them from the sad- 

 dler than for the wool and skin separately disposed 

 of otherwise. 



Other skins which you desire to cure with the 

 fur or hair on, may be treated the same way. — Se- 

 lected. 



Warmth in Feeding Cattle. — A late English pa- 

 per states, that at the Clithero agricultural meet- 

 ing, a communication was read from Professor 

 Playfair, which contained the following facts wor- 

 thy the attention of every farmer in a cold climate : 



" Heat is an equivalent for food, and by knowl- 

 edge of this fact we may economize the latter very 

 considerably. We know that cattle fatten umch 

 more slowly in winter than in summer, the reason 

 being that part of the food is expended in the pro- 

 duction of the necessary heat. Lord Ducie was 

 kind enough to communicate to me an experiment 

 of his, in which 100 sheep in the open air, and 

 another 100 in the same space, with sheds to re- 

 tire into at pleasure. The first lot ate 25 lbs. of 

 Swedes (turnips) per day, the latter only 20 lbs. ; 

 although this lot, with 5 lb. a day less, had gained 

 on an average 2 lbs. per sheep more than the other, 

 at the conclusion of the experiment." 



Insane. — An article in the January number of 

 the North American Review, written, it is under- 

 stood, by Dr. S. G. Howe, gives the following ta- 

 ble of the proportion of insane in various countries : 

 In Holland, the insane are in proportion to the 

 the whole population, about as J to 1223 



France, • 1 to 1000 



England, 1 to 793 



Scotland, 1 to 5G3 



New Hampshire, 1 to 4GG 



Connecticut, 1 to 425 



Massachusetts, 1 to 421 



Euclid, having offended a brother, the latter, in 

 his rage, said, " Let me die, if I am not avenged on 

 you sometime or other 1" Euclid replied, "And 

 let me die, if I do not soften you by my kindness- 

 es, and make you love me as well as ever." 



