IMPROVING WET MEADOWS AND SWAMP LANDS. Ill 



in this particular with preaching what I do not practice — for I 

 ploughed ten acres of meadow last fall, and have just finished be- 

 tween twelve and fourteen this fall. I plough with a pair of wheels 

 so as to keep the off ox out of the furrow, chaining the plough to 

 the axle-tree inside the off wheel. I use one of the largest road 

 coulter ploughs, with a drag cutter, (a wheel or circular cutter may 

 he better,) made by Ruggles, Nourse & Co., which turns a furrow 

 averaging a foot in depth and something over two feet wide. But 

 I am travelling out of the record. To return, I have to say in favor 

 of this mode of planting potatoes, — which is akin to the " lazy bed 

 system," as it is termed on the other side of the water, — that when 

 a meadow is so situated that it cannot be ploughed, I have no doubt 

 that this is the best and most economical mode of changing it into 

 valuable grass land. It would be Avell, too, if a man has not a very 

 large quantity of such land, and is not in too great a hurry to con- 

 vert it into grass, — to plant it more than one year, running his 

 trench the second season through the middle of the bed of the first. 

 Perhaps three seasons would be still better, for then the whole land 

 •would be thoroughly worked and its character completely changed, 

 and every trace of its natural product entirely obUterated. But if 

 a meadow is, thoroughly drained, and so situated that it can be 

 ploughed and grass seed sown upon the furrow, a victory has been 

 gained over it, the benefit of which cannot be taken away until the 

 drains are choked and the meadow again saturated with water. It 

 only needs a little sub-soil from the high lands, — all the better if it 

 be inclined to clay, or gravel, or common sand even, when nothing 

 better is at hand, to produce remunerating if not abundant crops of 

 the best grasses for an ordinary life-time. 

 Rowley, November 15th, 1855. 



WILLIAM OSBORNE'S STATEMENT. 



The meadow I offer for premium contains two acres and ninety- 

 eicht rods, which I commencedclearing in the fall of 1852. It was 

 then covered with alders, pines, blueberries, cedars, wild rose buehes, 

 swamp wortleberries, &c., and so wet as to make it difficult to 

 plough ; soil varying from gravelly loam to black mould, most part 



