68 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



to be instrumental in the extrication of any thing, spiritual, 

 animal, or vegetable, from this dark abode, this mournful fate, 

 must afford satisfaction to any one possessed of right feeling. 

 The sensation of rescuing from hopelessness and restoring to 

 utility can be no other than a pleasing one. Is it nothing to 

 make the barren womb of earth to .rejoice by causing it to be 

 the fruitful mother of abundant produce ? We have authority, 

 which it would be impious to question, that there is more joy in 

 heaven over one sinner that repenteth than over ninety and nine 

 just persons that need no repentance. May we not reveren- 

 tially adopt this Heaven-born sentiment, and, in the appropria- 

 tion of it to our worldly affinities, venture to feel that there is 

 more joy, not only in making two blades of grass grow where 

 one grew before, but also in making one grow where none 

 grew before, than there is in beholding the vast, immeasurable 

 extent of indigenous vegetation, however luxuriant, that clothes 

 the western prairie ? 



It is gratifying to observe the progress made for some time 

 past in reclaiming waste and swamp lands. In the ten years, 

 between 1840 and 1850, not less than two hundred and thirty- 

 nine thousand nine hundred and eighty-seven acres were re- 

 claimed and made productive throughout this State. The pas- 

 ture land has been turned into mowing and tillage, and the 

 unimproved land into pasturage or tillage. 



The profit arising from reclaimed land is said to be, on an 

 average, fifty per cent. ; in some cases it is very large, and 

 lands so reclaimed have become the best parts of the farms, 

 yielding, in general, two good crops of first quality hay in a 

 season. 



A writer from Hampshire county, who is quoted by the Sec- 

 retary of the State Board of Agriculture in his First Annual 

 Report, gives the following process of reclaiming poor, worth- 

 less swamp lands: — 



" In the first place," says he, "we drain them as dry as we can 

 conveniently, and then we cut the surface over as even aa 

 possible, and in sonic cases we plough and level it. Then we 

 draw on sand or gravel at the rate of about a cartload to a 

 square rod of ground, and then cart on fifteen or twenty loads 

 of* good manure to the acre, and spread evenly over the ground, 



