RECLAIMED MEADOWS. 105 



PLYMOUTH. 



Statement of Josiah L. Bassett. 



The land I have entered for the society's premium, before 

 operating upon it, was lowish, moist land. The lowest, be- 

 fore being drained, was so cold and wet as to be almost 

 worthless. The mud was from one foot to three feet deep. 

 Portions of it were covered with bushes, — the high part with 

 laurel and alder, and the lowest with alder and whortleberry, 

 some maple and birch trees, and some pine stumps of an 

 old growth. The bushes and trees were cut in the fall of 

 1857, and burned on the ground. One acre and two rods 

 were worked and sowed to grass in the fall of 1858, and 

 all the pine stumps that were in sight were taken out of the 

 whole lot that has since been clca^red. In 1859 I worked 

 and sowed one acre and forty-eight rods, and the present sea- 

 son have worked and sowed to grass three acres and one 

 hundred and twenty»rods — making in all six acres and ten 

 rods of land. 



Tliis piece of land is what I should call broken, some of 

 it high enough to plough, and some with a deep surface of 

 mud. The part that was high enough to plough cost, by esti- 

 mate, ready to receive the manure, twenty dollars per acre ; 

 and that part covered with roots and mud, I estimate at fifty 

 dollars per acre. There has been a large amount of roots 

 and turf burned, the ashes spread upon the same ; about 

 thirty loads of good compost manure to the acre, and on& 

 bag of Peruvian guano. The compost manure, with the- 

 guano, I call worth twenty-five dollars per acre. The ashes 

 made of the burned stuff is a first rate manure for grass, 

 which is reckoned with the expense of clearing. The cost 

 of ditching is well paid by the mud taken from the ditches. 

 The time of working this land has been mostly in the months 

 of June and August. I have estimated that I cut from two 

 to two and a half tons to the acre on what has been mown. 



Statement of C. G. Davis, of Plymouth. 

 During the last four years I have been making the best 

 part of my farm, from land which was dead swamp in 1856. 

 I commenced with the slope extending from the northerly: 

 u 



