WORCESTER SOCIETY. 59 



Such was the language of one, who, more than a hundred 

 years since, was engaged in improving for profit those waste 

 spots, now to be found neglected on many farms. You having 

 referred to this neglect, and requested some account of the 

 meadow on my farm, I make the attempt, not however without 

 the feeling, that to properly understand the description of any 

 improvement on wet lands, the eye, as well as the ear, should 

 be called into service. About six years since, I commenced re- 

 claiming, and reclaimed and have now in progress about 24 

 acres. An attempt has been made to do something with the 

 upland and paring plough, also with an instrument like a har- 

 row, substituting for the teeth, plough-cutters, and adding roll- 

 ers, which on meadows, free from stumps, may be found useful. 

 My meadow being liberally supplied with large stumps and 

 trunks of trees under the bog, experience has led me to adopt 

 the paring process with the bog hoe, as the most economical. 

 It may seem superfluous to mention, that, previous to this, a 

 process of thorough draining was gone through with, by open 

 ditches. I have ploughed, pared, and burnt, adding gravel, 

 pared and carted off the turf, pared and burnt, adding, or leav- 

 ing nothing but the ashes, used the harrow-like instrument above 

 referred to, taking off loose turf, and adding compost ; in all 

 cases seeding down to grass, pared and burnt, and taken off 

 crops of rye, oats, corn, potatoes, and carrots. The mud will 

 generally pay for ditching. Paring, burning and stumping 

 have been done, the land being made ready for seed, for $25 per 

 acre, from which should be deducted the value of wood dug up. 



Mr. Elliot, before referred to, said, " Swamps that are full of 

 wood and brush, and covered with moss, if they are deep soil 

 and can be drained, will make good land for corn and grass." 

 If experience, one hundred years since, would warrant this re- 

 mark, we maybe safe now, in saying that such lands "will 

 make good land" for English grass, and amply remunerate 

 the fanner for any expense incurred in reclaiming them. Mr. 

 Phinney, who is good authority, thinks his reclaimed meadow 

 worth more than $400 per acre for cultivation. 



The average price of English hay may be stated at $10 

 per ton. If land thus renovated will produce two tons to the 



