RECLAIMED SWAMPS. 179 



acres forty-five dollars per acre. Also one-half acre, that was 

 burned without topping, the whole expense of reclaiming 

 amounts to eleven dollars. The crop on the same has been 

 heavy. Also one-half acre I reclaimed by under-draining and 

 gravelling, the expense of which was twenty-six dollars, which 

 promises well. 



I have now about one acre under way that I intend to seed 

 this fall. 



West Boxfokd, July 23, 1857. 



HAMPSHIRE. 



Statonent of George W. Hobart. 



I enter for the premium of the Hampshire Agricultural Soci- 

 ety three and a half acres of reclaimed swamp land, situated in 

 Amherst. In the autumn of 1854, I commenced draining and 

 cutting the brush and bogs on two acres of it. The land was 

 then, and for a long time had been, a worthless quagmire, cov- 

 ered with water and bushes two or three feet high, and was a fit 

 habitation for frogs and muskrats. 



In the winter of 1854, I covered about half of the lot with 

 coarse sand to the depth of three inches. In the spring of 1856, 

 when the top began to thaw, I sowed it to oats and grass seed, 

 harrowed and brushed them in, and had a light crop of oats. 

 In the fall, I increased the depth of the ditch to three or four 

 feet. I also cvit another small ditch from the opposite side of 

 the meadow, and cut and burned the brush and bogs on the 

 remaining acre and a half. 



In the spring of 1856, I ploughed, harrowed and planted to 

 corn and potatoes one acre, and sowed the half acre to oats and 

 grass seed. The grass came up well, the crop of oats was fair, 

 the corn good, and the yield of potatoes was at the rate of three 

 hundred bushels to the acre. I cut four tons of hay from the 

 two acres seeded the year before, which I sold at ten dollars per 

 ton. The present year, I cut about as much grass, and planted 

 one acre with Indian corn, broomcorn and potatoes. The 

 Indian corn produced about fifty bushels to the acre, the broom- 

 corn was an average crop, and I dug twelve bushels of potatoes 

 from eight rods of ground. 



