RECLAIMED MEADOWS. 107 



the surface. And the covering and filling in can be best 

 done when the weak places are frozen over, provided your 

 land is free from rose bushes, or such other plants as are 

 likely to push through your covering. In the spring a portion 

 of this land was covered by scraping down the brow of the 

 bank above, which was formerly too steep for a hay cart, thus 

 filling in over the drain under the bank some two or three 

 feet more. 



And now for the result. This land was laid down to clover, 

 herds-grass and Timothy, in the spring of 1857, and a portion 

 in the spring of 1858 with barn compost harrowed in, and has 

 been in English grass ever since. The crop has been very 

 heavy, and in 1859 had the finest show of Timothy which I 

 have ever seen. It came up and overtopped the herds-grass 

 after it had flowered, changing the whole appearance of the 

 field. I have mowed it twice every season, and the first crop is 

 more than can be made upon the ground. 



But how about the stone drains ? From my own experience 

 I should advise no man to make covered small stone drains 

 under any circumstances. My greatest trouble is with the 

 moles or field mice, who bore holes innumerable down into the 

 drains, which work the speedy destruction of the drains after a 

 few surface washings. No drain should admit a particle of water 

 from the surface. By great care and attention two only of my 

 drains have as yet become obstructed and overflowed, and in 

 these, or rather near these and in their stead, I shall now use 

 tiles. On a portion of the drained land where there was no 

 swamp, and the drain was cut through clay pan, I have seen no 

 mole holes, either in the grass or the cultivated land ; and on 

 this portion I raised fodder-corn the year after draining, where 

 a cow would formerly mire at every step. The corn was planted 

 in June, and was tasseled when the frost took it. 



During the last two years I have subdued another piece of 

 clean swamp. The whole lot consists of about four acres. 

 This was covered in August, 1858, with swamp whortleberry, 

 briers, rose bushes, high bush blackberry, and " black pepper,'* 

 upon a peat running from two to twelve feet deep, and over- 

 flowed by springs, from which, through its centre, flowed a 

 sluggish brook. In August, 1859, I cut off all the brush with 

 the axe and stub-scythe, and cleared off all of what was before 



