88 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



the upheaved rock abounds in sulphur. These lands are not 

 improved at all by plaster. I have one pasture which plaster 

 improves and one Avhich it does not improve. The latter I have 

 improved with ashes or manure. I know of no way of improv- 

 ing a pasture of that kind except by giving it some foreign aid, 

 aside from plaster, to bring it up. Tlie method I pursued with 

 one pasture was to mow off the bushes and dress it over with 

 compost. That will certainly bring in any kind of grass, whether 

 you sow it or not. ^ Horse manure, sown upon the surface, is 

 death to these bushes ; they can't stand cultivation ; and if you 

 can manure these pastures so far as to bring in a crop of any 

 grass thtit the cattle will eat, you will be sure to drive oil all the 

 old buslies. The grasses, such as clover, June grass, and red- 

 top, leave out in the ground ; all the great sour plants leave out 

 high ; and, as I said, if you continue to cut the plant below the 

 leaf, you are sure to kill it. We have not the means of bring- 

 ing up many of these old pastures, for the supply of manure is 

 limited ; but all those lands that are improved by plaster can be 

 improved, because the amount of plaster of Paris is unlimited. 

 Lands which will be improved by plaster are worth more than 

 double, I think, what those lands are that plaster will not 

 improve. The only way to do with those old pastures that we 

 have not the means of bringing up is to let them go back to 

 wood. They can be renovated in that way, and it is the only 

 way in which a great portion of the waste pasture land in this 

 Commonwealth can be restored to advantage. 



Mr. Wright, of Deerfield. — My experience in reclaiming pas- 

 tures is exceedingly limited. Some ten years ago, I purchased 

 a portion of a field (fourteen acres,) which had been used, before 

 I bought it, to pasture two cows. ^ I had the impression that it 

 could be improved. I hired the pasture the hrst year, to exper- 

 iment upon it somewhat. I was satisfied, from the result of 

 one year's operations, that there could be an improvement made. 

 I purchased it, and my neighbors joked me severely upon the 

 exorbitant price I paid for it. Probably no man in the neigh- 

 borhood would have given half the amount I paid for it. I paid 

 twenty-seven dollars an acre, and it had, within two or three 

 years previous, been sold for ten dollars, but I could not obtain 

 it for any less. The year I came into possession, I put in three 

 cows. Two of my neighbors were at my place, talking about 



