FARMS. 127 



having been rather to improve the general productiveness and 

 fertility of my farm by judicious management in the cultivation 

 and expenditure of the crops. By comparing the present with 

 former statements, it will be seen that some advance has been 

 made in the gross amount of crops, and I have no doubt that 

 the same or a greater ratio of increase is easily attainable for 

 the next three years. The bog and waste land (seven acres) 

 to which allusion was made in my first statement, has been so 

 far reclaimed that not a bog remains, and most of it has been 

 brought under cultivation, producing good crops annually. 

 This has been accomplished by removing the surface water by 

 means of open drains, cutting and removing bogs, then plough- 

 ing and planting with buckwheat or potatoes. Buckwheat has 

 been used solely as a first crop until the past season. In the 

 spring of 1858 about one acre was planted with potatoes. A 

 heavy fall of rain immediately after planting, and before the 

 drains had been suitably cleared, occasioned many vacancies ; 

 yet this acre produced ninety-six bushels of the finest look- 

 ing Jenny Lind potatoes I have ever seen, and entirely free 

 from disease. Other portions of this mucky ground have been 

 planted with potatoes the past season, and are also free from 

 disease, while upon higher ground and good loam adjoining, 

 many show signs of decay. About one acre which has had less 

 bogs upon it, but was formerly quite as wet and nearly as 

 worthless, has been made to produce good grass by covering the 

 surftice with earth, (cutting some of the highest bogs,) applying 

 twenty loads of compost manure, and sowing grass seed. This 

 was accomplished during tlie last winter and spring. It has 

 been mown twice tliis season, producing as we judge, two and 

 one-half tons of good hay. When I stock in this way, I sow 

 oats with the grass seed, which being cut for hay, increases 

 very much the yield of the first crop. One acre which has 

 been under cultivation the past three years has this autumn 

 been prepared for grass by the application of two hundred ox 

 loads of earth, followed with fifteen of manure. The seed was 

 sown the fifth of October and is looking finely. The cost of 

 carting and spreading the earth has been about eight cents per 

 load, or sixteen dollars per acre. Most of the earth used in 

 both the above instances needed to be removed to furnish an 

 outlet for the water. The muck taken from the ditches in the 



