82 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



than two or three hours a day, but I soon found I was improving. 

 My object was, originally, to recruit my health and go back to 

 teaching, but I soon became satisfied that in order to enjoy 

 health, it was necessary for me to continue this active employ- 

 ment. I went on a farm of some two hundred acres, probably 

 as unpromising as any in the county of Franklin. It had been 

 worn out by ploughing and raising grain. To begin with, they 

 raised wheat as long as they could, and then corn and rye. 

 The pastures were ploughed as long as they would produce 

 anything ; and when I went on to it, the probability is that ten 

 head of cattle was all it would support. The pastures were 

 covered with bushes, brakes, and every kind of noxious vege- 

 table that is entirely useless to the farmer. I commenced with 

 mowing the sweet fern. My neighbors told me that it was labor 

 lost ; that where I mowed one bush ten would spring up. But, 

 to begin with, I knew something of the laws of vegetable life ; I 

 knew that cutting down a vegetable and destroying its leaves, 

 which are its lungs, must eventually kill it. These ferns were 

 thick and large, and after mowing them I raked them into 

 bunches and burnt them, so as to leave the ground entirely 

 clear to mow over the second time. When they came up the 

 second time I could go over it with a common scythe and 

 mow it as fast as I could grass, and faster, too. The third year 

 there were but very few left ; and the fourth year they were all 

 gone ; and this land, that was covered by this kind of vegetable, 

 is now the richest and best of pasture land. After disposing 

 of these, I went at the brakes. I mowed them down, and kept 

 them mowed down, and destroyed them, so that there is scarcely 

 a brake on the land. 



My idea of the improvement of pasture land is that the main 

 thing is to clear every noxious and useless vegetable out of the 

 way, and let the grasses have a chance to grow, and they will 

 take care of themselves. Another thing I am satisfied of, is, 

 that if land is let alone, it will recuperate itself ; that nature's 

 operations are the surest and best. I never would plough land 

 for pasture or for mowing, where the surface is smooth and free 

 from water. On some portions of this pasture, where there were 

 strawberry vines, the " five-finger," so called, white grass, and 

 different kinds of vegetables that stock will not eat, I sowed 

 plaster. TJie effect of that was to start the clover and other 



