70 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



and obtained a large crop ; second year planted Indian corn, 

 and had an abundant crop ; third year planted broom corn, and 

 had an abundant crop. In looking over my minutes of the in- 

 come derived during the first three years of its improvement, 

 after making a fair deduction of all expenses for manure and 

 labor, I find that my receipts exceed the expenditure over 

 eighty dollars. 



Since that time, a period of fourteen years, the land has been 

 constantly planted to broom corn, and has produced crops equal 

 in value to the best meadow soils, while only about five loads 

 of manure were used to the acre, and applied in the hill, which 

 has kept it in a good state of cultivation. It yields as good 

 crops, and is as beautiful in appearance, and as productive, as 

 any land in the vicinity. 



Hadley, October 17, 1854. 



Statement of John A. Morton. 



My piece of meadow land contains one and a half acres. 

 The soil is in part peat mud and in part a clayey subsoil. It 

 was in pasture, covered with brush, coarse grass, and water. 

 In the fall of 1851 I ploughed the lot in which this land lies to 

 the depth of seven inches. I then cut drains around the wet 

 part, the ditches running north and south about two rods apart, 

 the fall being sufficient to carry off the water. I planted it to 

 corn in the spring of 1852, manured in the hill with ten loads 

 to the acre, and the yield was thirty bushels to the acre. In 

 the spring of 1853 I ploughed in fifteen loads of sheep manure 

 to the acre, and again planted to corn with ten loads of com- 

 post manure in the hill. The corn grew large, and was consid- 

 erably injured by the wind in August. The ground being soft, 

 the corn was turned out by the roots. I raised over fifty 

 bushels of corn per acre. I sowed the piece to oats the 1st 

 of June, 1854, and sowed twelve quarts of timothy grass seed 

 and three pounds of clover to the acre. The oats were light ; 

 the seeding looks well. The land I consider worth fifty dollars 

 per acre, which was nearly worthless when I came in posses- 

 sion of it. I think the great secret in reclaiming land is, to get 



