IMPROVING PASTURE AND WASTE LAND: 73 



Forty rods of this lot were seeded the middle of August, 

 and the remainder about the middle of September, it being 

 too wet to seed with the first lot. 



July 7, 1876, the 40 rods first seeded were mowed, and 

 November 27, it was sold to J. S. Carr, of Springfield, for 

 $21 per ton. It weighed 1,550 pounds, and amounted to 

 $16.27, or at the rate of 3^ tons and $65 per acre. 



During the past summer (1876), about two acres of this 

 meadow have been ploughed and reseeded. 



Thirty-five rods of underdrains have been laid, and 34* 

 rods of ditches dug, but not covered. 



The plough used was Whitteinore & Belcher's side-hill 

 plough, No. 1,000, with meadow point, the wings of which 

 were ground twice a day in order to cut the bog-grass roots. 



During the time above named, 298 rods of underdrains have 

 been constructed, and 249^ rods of open drains have been 

 dug. In 1876, 79 rods of covered and 58^ rods of open 

 drains have been made, making 377 covered and 307| open 

 drains, or 684| in all. 



FRANKLIN. 



Statement of Alonzo Graves of Greenfield. 



The piece of land I have entered for premium contains four 

 and three-fourths acres. In 1866 two-fifths of it was covered 

 with a young growth of wood, with occasionally an old forest 

 tree ; the remaining three-fifths with large clumps of willows ; 

 the whole was very uneven and extremely wet, pond-holes 

 standing on part of it the whole of every year. In the spring 

 of 1866, I cut all the wood, and dug up all the willows; I 

 mowed the brush and coarse grass every summer after that 

 until the spring of 1873, when I dug and pried up all the 

 stumps and ploughed with one yoke of cattle the two-fifths ; 

 in September following harrowed, levelled, ditched, manured 

 and sowed to grass-seed, herdsgrass, clover and redtop. The 

 three-fifths my children called the checkerberry lot, as these 

 and blueberries covered nearly the whole of it. This, in the 

 fall of 1874, I ditched, ploughed, harrowed, levelled, and 

 manured and then harrowed again ; then sowed herdsgrass 

 and redtop ; the next spring, clover on the snow. I manured 



10* 



