BARNSTABLE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 181 



height of five feet, and tlien filling the space between the board- 

 ing with marsh sods, taken from the salt marsh below the -dike. 

 I then cut a ditch through the centre of the meadow, and let the 

 fresh water off through a plank drain under the dike, (eight by- 

 ten inches in the clear,) with a clapper on the outer end, hung 

 with copper hinges, with five pounds of lead attached to the 

 bottom of the clapper or gate, to make it close on the first flow 

 of the tide. I then dug several ditches to cut off the numerous 

 springs, and filled most of them with small stones, to within six 

 or eight inches of the surface of the ground, and then covered 

 the stones with sea-weed, and then with sand. In the fall of 

 the same year, I ploughed a side-hill, adjoining the premises, 

 heaped the soil in ridges^ about 30 feet apart, and covered the 

 hill with sea-weed, to keep out the frost. When the meadow 

 was frozen sufficiently to bear a horse and cart, I dug off the hill 

 nearly level with the meadow, and replaced the soil, and cover- 

 ed about one and a half acres with sand, from six to eight inch- 

 es deep. 



In the spring following, I sowed it with oats, herds grass, 

 red-top and clover seed; harrowed in the oats, and cov- 

 ered the whole with manure. The season for oats was un- 

 favorable, but the grass seed took finely. In the summer of 

 1844, I cut about three tons of good English hay, where former- 

 ly nothing grew but rushes, flags, and wild grass of little value. 

 In December of that year, in a violent storm, (the filling of the 

 dike being nothing but marsh sods, which had become very 

 light,) the tide and wind cracked off the meadow, even with 

 the planking, in the centre, and the water broke under the dike, 

 six or eight feet below the surface, and brought up wood and 

 stumps of trees, that were not known to have been there before. 

 The salt water covered the whole meadow, from two to five 

 feet deep, and the tide continued to flow over it, but at a less 

 depth, for more than a week. On the receding of the tide, the 

 planking and piles settled in some places, nearly level with the 

 meadow. 



I repaired the dike by driving down piles from five to six 

 inches in diameter, and fifteen feet long, and planking as before. 

 I then filled up the dike with sods as before, and covered the 



