262 HAMPSHIRE SOCIETY. 



The present worth of the land, 40 acres, at 



$150 per acre, - - - $6,000 00 



10 acres, at $50 per acre, - - $500 00 



$6,500 00 



Net profit, - - - $4,831 00 



If there is any error in the above account, it is in the present 

 price of the land, as I might with safety add one thousand dol- 

 lars more. I have been offered and can now take two hundred 

 dollars per acre for twenty acres of the best of this land. 

 There are hundreds, and I may say, thousands of acres in the 

 county of Hampshire that maybe reclaimed, and would be the 

 most productive lands we have. 



Hadley, Oct. 20, 1851. 



Leonard BarretVs Statement. 



According to my earliest recollections, the land was covered 

 with bogs and a species of small low water brush. As long 

 ago as I can recollect, my father used to mow the most of it, 

 and got nothing but the very poorest kind of bog hay, and that 

 we had to carry out to hard land by hand on poles, in most 

 cases the ground being too soft to drive cattle across it. 



But in process of time the grass mostly died out for want of 

 draining, and the bushes took its place. At the decease of my 

 father some thirteen years since, it came into my possession, 

 and I resolved, after hearing and seeing some experiments on 

 similar ground, to try my fortune at improving it. Accord- 

 ingly I commenced cutting the bushes, and hired a drain dug 

 the whole length of it, about three feet wide and one foot in 

 depth, and the spring following, burnt it over to kill the small 

 bushes. But I found in one season that my drain was not suf- 

 ficient, and I sunk it a foot lower, which I found to answer 

 very well, although I have had to clean it out and widen it 

 twice since. After lying in this condition two years, I com- 

 menced bogging. I first took a small piece and cut the whole 

 surface over just low enough to smooth it and take all the 

 bushes and bogs, and piled them in heaps and carted off what 

 I could get at, burnt the remainder and sowed the ashes over 

 the ground, and then, after raking it smooth, I sowed my grass 



