18 ESSEX SOCIETY. 



David Gratfs Statement. 



I commenced operations on my meadow in the autumn of 

 1842, with no practical experience in the business, by digging a 

 ditch through the lowest part of the land, but the next year I 

 found it did not clear it of superabundant water. I then ditched 

 it on the shores, which effectually drained it. It was a peaty 

 bottom, varying from twelve to thirty inches in depth, with a 

 stratum of about three inches of clay, mixed with sand, imme- 

 diately under which was a deep quick sand. In ditching, I cut 

 through the clay into the sand, which effectually drained it. In 

 the spring of 1844, I found it in a proper state to plant with po- 

 tatoes, but too soft for ploughing. I then dug it with a spade, 

 or, what the Irish call a loy, laying it in ridges about four and a 

 half feet wide, with ditches between, from twelve to twenty 

 inches in width. Before digging, I covered the ridges with gravel 

 two or three inches deep. I then spread my manure on the 

 gravel, and covered it by turning a sod each way, making it 

 into ridges in the same manner that back furrows with a plough 

 would do. A part of it I manured with common winter ma- 

 nure from the barn, and a part I manured with ashes made of 

 peat cut from between the ridges. The early kinds of potatoes 

 did well, but the later kinds were destroyed by rust when about 

 half grown ; still my crop averaged about four hundred bushels 

 to the acre. 



In the summer of 1844, I undertook to plough a portion which 

 had not been cultivated, but did not succeed, it being too soft for 

 oxen to travel on. I then dug it over with the Irish loy, laying 

 it perfectly flat, as a plough would turn it without ridging it. I 

 then covered it with a mixture of sand, gravel and loam, about 

 three inches deep, applying about twenty cart-loads of compost 

 manure to the acre. I then sowed it with herds grass and red- 

 top the first week in September. It promised well when winter 

 set in ; but in the spring of 1845 I found some of it killed 

 with frost, and the land in appearance somewhat spongy, to 

 remedy which I sowed more grass seed. 



