SECRETARY'S REI'r)U1\ 80 



the purdiasc, and tlicy said Llicy Lliou;:,liL 1 had o-of, my place 

 pretty well stocked ; that they didn't bulicve the pasture wouhl 

 carry through those three animals. I remarked that I didn't 

 tliink it would, and 1 should remove one of them in the course 

 of the season. However, it was a fine season for the growlli of 

 vegetation, and they lived through th(! sunnner. TUo next 

 spring I conmienced my operations. Jn the first place, 1 removed 

 all obnoxious vegetation ; I made a clean thing of it. U cost 

 me a good deal of labor, but when it was bruslied ovci-, it looked 

 very smooth. I then took twenty bushels of ashes, three-c^uar- 

 ters of a ton of plaster, and ciglit bushels of hen manure, and 

 composted them together. It lay some two or three weeks, and 

 then I scattered it round the fourteen acres, broadcast. It had 

 a very wonderful effect. I have continued this same dressing 

 up to the present time. I commenced this Ofjcration seven 

 years ago, and the season before the last, I j)ut in seven cows 

 and three early sj)ring calves, and had a very line pasture. 

 This last season I put in the same, but in consequence of the 

 severity of the drought, I removed two of the animals. Hut 

 from the experience I have had with this tract of land, I think, 

 if I am permitted to live three years, I can keep ten cows on 

 this pasture, and that they will be able to fdl themselves in two 

 hours, and lie down. There is a great deal of real estate in the 

 town of Deerficld that is useless. We are so situated tliat we 

 arc in want of home pastures, which we do not possess ; but I 

 am satisfied that if the proper measures were taken to reclaim 

 this waste land, we could be well supplied with Ijeautiful 

 pastures, within a stone's cast, almost, of our homes. 



Dr. IIartvvicll. — Have you made the experiment with plaster 

 alone ? 



Mr. WiiKJiiT. — I have, sir. The pasture is very hilly, with 

 the exception of two or three acres upon the top, which are 

 flat, and the soil is a sandy gravel. I think that plaster alone 

 would not have much effect upon it. If I come down the lull 

 a little, some ten or fifteen feet, where it is clay, there I get the 

 effect of plaster alone. 



Mr. Smith, of Northampton. — I have the misfortune to 



own something like a hundred acres of land occupied for 



pasturing, which is situated very differently from that in the 



neighborhood of my friend, Mr. Lathrop, of which he has given 



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