ON AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTS. 45 



award to Mr. Wiley a gratuity of three dollars. How far he is 

 to be considered as the original inventor and in what respects 

 they admit of being improved, your Committee are unable to 

 determine. Shoes of a somewhat different construction, but seen 

 by some of your Committee to serve the purpose well, were the 

 last season used on the Lynn Marshes, with great advantage to 

 the farmers engaged in securing hay ; but as this is the first year 

 within the knowledge of your Committee, when any such con- 

 trivance has been used, and Mr. Wiley's shoes or boots having 

 been found useful, the Committee deemed them deserving of 

 their notice. 



Salt Hay when well cured is a very valuable feed for neat cat- 

 tle and horses, and may be fairly considered as equivalent in 

 value to more than one half of the same amount of English hay ; 

 and the salt meadows requiring no manuring and demanding no 

 other improvement than that of cutting and keeping clear nu- 

 merous drains, and filling up the pond holes with what is obtained 

 from the ditches, will be always highly appreciated by the farm- 

 ers In their neighborhood. Salt hay taken directly from the 

 marshes and spread upon grass ground is by many intelligent 

 farmers pronounced equal to the best stable manure applied to 

 the same purpose, and for this object alone, in the neighborhood 

 of the Lynn Marshes, several practical men consider it as worth 

 five dollars per ton. A mixture of this feed with English hay 

 is conducive to the health of the animals fed upon it ; and is 

 proved to be as agreeable as it is nutritious by the avidity with 

 which they seize upon it. The importance of thoroughly drain- 

 ing such meadows deserves to be much insisted upon as by ac- 

 tual experiment the crop by such means will be more than 

 doubled ; and a better kind of grass than is otherwise found is 

 likely to be brought in. 



It has occurred to some of your Committee that a cheap and 

 moveable rail way, with a carriage adapted to it, to be drawn by 

 men, might often on these marshes be used to great advantage ; 

 and since this suggestion, intelligence has been received, that such 

 an invention has actually been brought into use in England, for 

 the purpose of conveying marl or manure on deep bog mead- 



