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land was but a waste and that was about the only way of utiliz- 

 ing it. 



On examining this tract there did not appear sufficient cause 

 why it should he allowed to run to waste : I accordingly took 

 it in hand, first cutting doivn and rooting out the willows, and 

 then removing for use in compost heaps the bank of earth 

 upon which they grew. I nest had the old ditch deepened, 

 after tapping by a small tiled drain a single spot which in the 

 spring of the year looked wet ; believing that the wetness of 

 the tract was caused almost solely by surface water from the 

 high hill tract on which the Hospital is located, I had my 

 men dig a short ditch just outside the wall of the field, to 

 catch the surface water as it ran down the hill and turn it in- 

 to a brook which ran through another part of this eighteen 

 acre tract. 



The land was now ploughed with a large plow drawn by two 

 yoke of oxen. It was turned to the depth of ten inches, to 

 which depth the soil had the black color, common to low, wet 

 land, and beneath this we found clay and sand, in the form of a 

 moderately hard hard-pan. A glue compost, about seven cords 

 to the acre, was spread on the surface, worked in, and the com- 

 mon mixture of grass seed sown. In 1879 we had our first crop 

 of hay, which was a ton and three-fourths per acre, for the first 

 crop, and nearly two tons per acre, for the second crop. The 

 past season the first crop was a ton and a half, and the second 

 over a ton per acre. The improvements made being perma- 

 nent ones, I charge but six per cent, of the outlay in this 

 direction against the crops of the two past seasons. 



I consider the great value of the experiment to be a lesson 

 to all us farmers, to use a common saying, " not to be scared 

 before we are hurt." In all probability, for a century or more, 

 this tract of land had been classified as waste, on the assump- 

 tion that it could not be made sufficiently dry for tillage, 

 whereas an outlay of about forty dollars has added to its value, 

 at the lowest, seventy-five dollars per acre. 



The profits of the investment, as shown by the two years' 



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