RECLAIMED MEADOWS. 109 



■when they were threshed witli a machine. They threshed 

 sixty-four bushels of thirty-four pounds per bushel, making 

 sixty-eight busliols of thirty-two pounds. In addition to this, 

 I liave no doubt I lost four bushels by the hens, not counting 

 what I lost l)y mowing, raking and carting. In September I 

 mowed the grass crop, principally clover, and got 2,200, weighed 

 as it went into the barn. 



Upon a quarter of an acre I sowed Hungarian grass June 

 10, cropped it August 20, and laid it down immediately to 

 grass. Tlie Hungarian grass was not weighed, but was esti- 

 mated at half a ton. Another quarter of an acre was drained 

 by running three hundred feet of tile drain under the bank at 

 the edge of the peat, cutting through it about a foot into the 

 solid clay pan two feet more. Upon this portion I cut out the 

 bushes and meadow roots, and have left it to grass. The cost 

 of this work, also, it is impossible for me to estimate accurately. 

 Besides the peat which was carried to the barn, I covered 

 during the winter an acre of flat old pasture land adjoining, 

 with one hundred and twenty-eight horse-cart loads, and filled 

 tlie holes with sods and gravel. The roots upon the sandy 

 knoll werQ burned in March, and the ashes ploughed in upon 

 the knoll, and the pasture land around it. This I laid down 

 on the 10th of June with lucerne and barley, and mowed both 

 for hay, August 20. The lucerne was fifteen to twenty inches 

 high, and as the land is cleaned, I expect to mow it for fodder 

 four times a year for the next dozen years. I think wdiat I 

 have done has cost me one hundred and fifty days' work, but 

 at that price, it being well done, I consider this land, which 

 was before entirely worthless, the best land I have got, probably 

 as good for grass, our great staple, as any land in the county. 



Upon peat meadows like this, permit me to say that I deem 

 open drains, well made, far better than any system of under- 

 draining. No close drains, it seems to me, could last two 

 years — not only the muddy deposit of the peat, but the settling, 

 and unequal texture of the peat would destroy them. Nor do 

 open drains upon such swamps furnish the objection that the 

 meadow is cut up into small lands, which is well taken in cases 

 where there are frequent springs, and the drains must be 

 frequent also, as is the case with the land I first drained. 

 Much of our flat peat meadows are furnished by springs above 



