146 BOARD OF AGRICULTUEE. 



thing that will make manure ; then utilize the green crops, 

 which you can do without losing a season. Turn in your 

 gi*een crop of grass the first year, and the second year your 

 green crop of rye, without losing any time. I would rather 

 take an old farm anywhere in New England, and have New 

 England surroundings, than to go West and have the best 

 farm given me. 



The Chairman. We have heard how peat land is re- 

 claimed. This is a broad su])ject, and there are different 

 kinds of soil to be dealt with. The land in Plymouth 

 County is somewhat different from that in Middlesex County, 

 and I think that Mr. Cushman of Lakeville can tell us some- 

 thing that will be of interest in regard to the way it is done 

 in his region. 



Mr. Cushman. It seems to me that the ground has been 

 pretty well gone over on this subject. I was particularly 

 pleased with one point brought out in the paper read by the 

 essayist, where he recommended the planting and cultivation 

 of the white pine. I was taught by all the associations of 

 my early childhood to almost reverence the white pine tree, 

 and to-day there is no sight, perhaps, that is more pleasant 

 to me, or upon which I look with more loving eyes, than 

 upon a forest of growing pines. It is beautiful every day 

 in the year. Twenty years ago it was always my delight 

 and my pleasure to recommend the planting of the white 

 pine. I did something in that line myself, but to-day, 

 owing to the change in the relative value of things, perhaps 

 it is not wise policy for the State Board of Agriculture to 

 recommend, or, perhaps, to put it in another form, there is 

 no necessity of urging the planting of more forest trees, and 

 especially the white pine. As has been truly said, my 

 county is the natural home of the white pine, and any one 

 going down to my old town of Middleborough, in the south 

 part of the county, will find there three mills that are an- 

 nually cutting up large quantities of this lumber. One of the 

 owners told me, not ten days ago, that there would be this 

 year about the usual amount cut up that had been consumed 

 for the last four or five years, 3,500 cords, in one corner of 

 the town. I remarked to him, "Have you any idea, sir, 

 that the annual growth in the vicinity of these three mills is 



