90 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



a description. Plaster alone does not seem to have any effect 

 upon it whatever. It is ground that has been ploughed, hereto- 

 fore, for a long series of years. I should endorse fully the 

 sentiment that has been expressed here, that it is no improve- 

 ment to plough or burn forest lands newly cleared. I have 

 made some little effort to kill out the brush on my old pastures, 

 where there are the high laurel and sweet fern. I consider the 

 laurel one of the hardest bushes in the world to kill. It is 

 hard to plough up, and cutting it off seems only to give new 

 vigor. I have tried burning, but so many leaves fall from it, 

 that they make a light body of matter that burns very readily 

 in a dry season ; and I have only to follow that up about three 

 years, to eradicate all the grass that does grow on the land. I 

 find it eradicates the grass, but does not hurt the bushes, — they 

 grow finely. This land is situated on the sunny side of Mount 

 Tom, prettily located, but rather rough. The soil is a stony 

 loam or loamy gravel. It was naturally a strong soil, but it 

 has been ploughed to death. It produced a heavy growth of 

 oak and hickory, and when it was first cleared off, in my grand- 

 father's day, they used to get good wheat from it — much better 

 than they got on the river flats. Consequently they ploughed, 

 and planted, and cropped, without returning any thing back, 

 until they entirely exhausted it. These lands have not been 

 ploughed much for the last thirty years. We have been expect- 

 ing that by adopting a system of pasturing and keeping the 

 bushes down, they would eventually improve, but the improve- 

 ment is very slight, if any. I have commenced ploughing, to 

 some small extent, to renovate them. I turn over a piece as 

 well as I can, for stony ground, and sow rye, with ashes or 

 guano, or any fertilizer that I can get up there ; I cannot spare 

 manure to use up there. Ashes work well. I have used in 

 connection with ashes, plaster. I cannot see that plaster, 

 applied alone, has any effect ; it may with ashes. In that way 

 I get a pretty good growth of rye. But I do not harvest the 

 rye. I let it stand until it has headed out, and then turn in 

 my cattle and feed it down. In that way I have improved the 

 land, as far as I have tried it. It has given me the most satis- 

 faction of any method I have ever attempted. It makes an 

 abundance of feed, and my seed takes well, sown in that way. 

 It is not very expensive. Fifteen or twenty bushels to the acre 



