RECLAIJVnNG LAND. 139 



Still there is another phase to the question of reclaiming 

 land with the farmers of Massachusetts. They are men of 

 comparatively small means ; when they reclaim land they 

 want to do it in such a way that they can immediately see 

 a return for the money they invest. That is the idea ; and, 

 as the chairman has said, I have made some experiments in 

 reclaiming land, for most of the land I have has been re- 

 claimed in one way or another. For instance, I have land 

 that was soft and unproductive that has been reclaimed 

 simply by thoroughly underdraining it. That, with proper 

 fertilization and tillage, has made it good land. I have other 

 land that could not be reclaimed in that way ; and to de- 

 scribe it I have got to relate matters that pertain to my own 

 place, which I do not like to do. In front of my house I have 

 one piece of land containing about seventy acres which is 

 very nearly level, and all susceptible of cultivation after 

 being put in proper condition. That land, when I was a boy 

 working on the farm, which my father had bought in differ- 

 ent pieces, was, as you might say, almost entirely unpro- 

 ductive. It did not produce English hay enough to keep 

 one horse. Being in a good location, it was desirable to 

 make the most of it. What I desire to speak more par- 

 ticularly about is reclaiming bog land, — utterly worthless 

 land in its natural state. I have in the centre of this piece 

 of ground ten acres, which we are reclaiming at the rate 

 of two or three acres a year, at leisure times, and mak- 

 ing it productive. This is the course that has been pursued 

 upon that land and its condition ever since I was a boy. It 

 has been mown every year, raked every year, and the sur- 

 face being soft the crop has been carried to hard land on/ 

 poles (although it is well enough above water when the 

 ditches are open) ; still, a horse cannot go on it without 

 rackets. It never paid for mowing, it never paid for raking, 

 and it never paid for taking the hay off. That has been the 

 method practised for the last fifty years, — simply to keep 

 the brush down. That land before it is reclaimed is utterly 

 worthless, — worse than that, because it costs something 

 every year to take care of it. Our work of reclamation is 

 done in the winter. We go over the ground and cut off the 

 bogs or tussocks, and put whatever is taken off in holes, if 



