234 PEAT. 



to twenty pieces in a pile. It will then require about 

 four weeks of dry weather to render it fit to be housed 

 for use. The top, or turf, is thrown back into the pits 

 from which the peat is taken ; and, if well leveled, and 

 the ground drained, it will, after the first year, give a 

 large crop of foul meadow, or other lowland grass. 

 Peat, taken from land which has been many years 

 drained, when dried, is nearly as heavy as oak wood, 

 and bears about the same price in the market. 



'' The value of peat-lands for tillage is now pretty 

 well known and acknowledged. Some years since, I 

 occasionally sold to my neighbors a few rods of my 

 peat-land yearly, to be cut out for fuel, at three dollars 

 per rod, being at the rate of four hundred and eighty 

 dollars per acre ; but, finding this sum to be less than its 

 value for cultivation, especially when laid to grass, I 

 have declined making further sales at that' price. T 

 have raised upon my reclaimed meadows seventy-five 

 bushels of corn, five hundred bushels of potatoes, or 

 from four to five tons of the best hay, at a first and 

 second cutting, to the acre, at a less expense of labor 

 and manure than would be required to produce half 

 this crop upon uplands. To render these lands pro- 

 ductive, they should be thoroughly drained, by digging 

 a ditch around the margin of the meadow, so as to cut 

 off the springs, and receive the water that is continual- 

 ly flowing in from the surrounding uplands. If the 

 meadow be wide, a ditch through the centre may be 

 necessary, but this will be of no use without the border 

 ditches. This being thoroughly done, and the surplus 

 water all drawn off", the next step is to exterminate the 

 wild grasses and herbage of every kind that grow upon 

 the surface. To effect this, the method heretofore 

 generally and now by some pursued, is to cover with 

 gravel or sand, top dress with manure, sow the grass- 

 seed, and then rake or bush it over. This, for the first 

 year or two, will give a good crop of hay ; but, after 

 this, I have invariably found that the more coarse and 



