94 ON RECLAIMED MEADOW LANDS. 



at seventy-seven cents per day, amounting to sixty-four dollars 

 and sixty-eight cents. 



From this reclaimed piece, I collected at least thirty cords of 

 wood, consisting principally of pine roots and stumps, which I 

 judge were richly worth one dollar per cord, after being piled 

 on the swamp. The old turf ditches were filled with stumps 

 and sods and then a thin coating of gravel was put on the 

 whole of it, say one half of an acre. 



After I had seeded down the first acre and a quarter, appre- 

 hending a failure of the seed, in the early part of the spring of 

 1849, 1 sowed one bushel of spring rye, which yielded a very 

 large crop of straw, and thirteen bushels of grain ; and the 

 grass that subsequently grew so thickly, showed that my pre- 

 vious apprehensions were groundless. 



The following year, the same piece yielded, in the opinion 

 of competent judges, two tons of good hay to the acre. I also, 

 for the first time, mowed the piece seeded down in 1849, con- 

 sisting of about two and a quarter acres, and obtained for the 

 first crop a ton and a half per acre. 1 also mowed one ton of 

 rowen from the above pieces. During the present year, 1851, 

 from the whole piece nine tons of good English hay have been 

 taken, with the exception of one half acre not seeded down 

 till last March. From the whole piece I have taken this fall, 

 not far from one ton of rowen. 



The priiiCipal top dressing for the land consisted of the 

 ashes obtained from the burning of the top surface. On the 

 turf ditches gravelled over, I put fifteen cart loads of compost 

 manure. During the last winter, I put twenty cart loads 

 of compost manure, principally upon the piece first seeded 

 down. I have applied no other and no more manure. On the 

 whole five acres I sowed two bushels of Timothy and five of 

 Red Top. The proximity of the meadow to my barn, (within 

 forty rods distance,) makes it in its present state exceedingly 

 valuable : and my neighbors concur in the opinion that origi- 

 nally, the now beautiful meadow was a very unsightly, uneven 

 and unprofitable piece of land and water. 



Boxford, October 18, 1851. 



