PEAT-MEADOWS. 



173 



meadow. He did live many years after. At a meeting 

 of the trustees of Framingham Academy, which stood 

 on the border of this nrieadow, Dr. D. Kellogg, Rev. 

 Mr. Packard, and J. Maynard, Esq. were present. Dr. 

 Packard looked oat on the old meadow, and, seeing it 

 flooded, inquired if it was dammed. '' Yes," said 

 Maynard, "and it always has been ever since I 

 knew it." 



This meadow was so miry in the centre, that we 

 could easily sink a rail eleven feet long endwise out of 

 sight. Our first business was to drain off the water. 

 We drained it off one foot and a half below the surface. 

 We then commenced the paring and burning system. 

 This paring is performed by hoes, sometimes assisted 

 by a paring-plough. When the meadow will bear up 

 oxen, a paring-plough facilitates the operation. Such a 

 plough has a wide share, say one foot and a half, 

 which branches out in a wing on each side. It has no 

 mould-plate, and does not turn the fiuTow over. It 

 only cuts the turf in slips, and suffers it to lie to bear 

 the team up; then with the hoes the sods are easily 

 turned over to dry. When the paring-plough is in 

 good order, one yoke of oxen will draw it through a 

 strong hassock. The plough has a sharp coulter, like 

 that of an old-fashioned wooden plough, and much re- 

 sembles one, except in the want of a mould-plate, and 

 in the addition of a second wing to the sharp, branching 

 out to the left or land side. 



In a dry summer the turf thus turned over will soon 

 burn if fire is applied. It burns much better the first 

 summer than if allowed to lie a year on the ground. 

 It is well to commence paring and burning in June, 

 for then we have the summer before us, and can choose 

 the dryest time for burning. When some of the sods 

 are well on fire, they may be heaped together, and 

 others not so dry may be piled on, till the heap becomes 

 as large as a hundred of hay. When thus piled, no 

 small rains will quench the fires, and they will often 

 burn for days of rainy weather. 



