142 ON LAND OP SECOND GROWTH. 



harrow then passed over, to pull down the heaps of leaves, and 

 roughest furrows. 



Results. The wheat was thin, but otherwise looked well while 

 young. The surface was very soon again covered by the leaves 

 dropping from the then dying trees. On April 2d, 1828, most of 

 the trees were nearly dead, though but few of them entirely. The 

 wheat was then taller than any in my crop, and, when ripe, was a 

 surprising growth for such land, and such imperfect tillage.- 



1829 and 1830. At rest. Late in the spring of 1830 an acci- 

 dental fire passed over the land ; but the then growing vegetation 

 prevented all of the older cover being burnt, though some was 

 destroyed everywhere. 



1831. In corn. The growth excited the admiration of all who 

 saw it, and no one estimated the product so low as it actually 

 proved to be. A square of four (two-pole) chains, or four-tenths 

 of an acre, measured on November 25th, yielded at the rate of 

 thirty-one and three-eighths bushels of grain to the acre. 



^ Experiment 17. 



In a field of acid sandy loam, long under the usual cultivation, 

 a piece of five or six acres was covered by a second growth of pines 

 thirty-nine years old, as supposed from that number of rings being 

 counted on some of the stumps. The largest trees were eighteen 

 or twenty inches through. This ground was altogether on the 

 side of a slope, steep enough to lose soil by washing, and more 

 than one old shallow gully remained to confirm the belief of the 

 injury that had been formerly sustained from that cause. These 

 circumstances, added to all the surrounding land having been con- 

 tinued under cultivation, made it evident that this piece had been 

 turned out of cultivation because greatly injured by tillage. It 

 was again cut down in the winter of 1824-5. Many of the trees 

 furnished fence-rails and fuel, and the remaining bodies were 

 heaped and burnt some months after, as well as the large brush. 

 In August it was marled, supposed at 600 bushels (37 per cent.), 

 twice coultered in August and September, and sowed in wheat- 

 the seed covered by trowel ploughs. The leaves and much of the 

 smaller brush, left on the ground, made the ploughing troublesome 

 and imperfect. The crop (1826) was remarkably good; and still 

 better were the crops of corn and wheat in the ensuing rotation, 

 after two years of rest. On the last crop of wheat (1830) clover 

 was sown and mowed for hay in 1831. The growth stood about 

 eighteen inches high, and never have I seen so heavy a crop on 

 sandy and acid soil, even from the heaviest dunging, the utmost 

 care, and the most favourable season. The clover grew well in the 

 bottoms of the old gullies, which were still plainly to be seen, and 

 which no means had been used to improve, except such as all the 



