ON MEADOW AND SWAMP LANDS. 53 



On land which admits of ploughing, I have planted 

 potatoes on coarse stable manure; after removing the 

 crop, I have sowed winter rj^e and herds and red top 

 seed, as late as November, and they have always grown 

 well and given good crops. After a few years the grass 

 will degenerate, and I have found unleached wood ashes 

 the best application to invigorate the soil. 



i have spread gravel and the accumulations under an 

 old barn floor on a wet meadow, and sown grass seed, 

 and the crop has been very heavy. 



In 1839, I ploughed forty poles of peat meadow, and 

 planted potatoes on coarse stable manure. I harvested 

 in the fall sixty bushels of excellent potatoes. The next 

 spring I again ploughed, and applied a compost of fif- 

 teen bushels of bone manure and three cart loads of 

 loam; on this I raised a large crop of sugar beets and 

 ruta baga; one of the former, weighing with the tops, 

 seventeen pounds, and one of the latter, twenty five 

 pounds. The ground appeared like a rich bed of com- 

 post, and I carted from it ten cords which I spread upon 

 upland grass. In the fall, one cord of horse manure 

 was ploughed in and winter rye and grass seed sown. 

 In July, 1841, 8 bushels of rye were reaped, and soon 

 after, a good crop of grass. In August, of the same 

 year, a second crop of grass was cut on this piece. This 

 year, the first crop of hay was fifty hundred to the acre, 

 and the second, twenty. 



I have drained four other pieces which were so miry 

 that oxen could not travel over them. The peat for 

 fuel fully pays the expense of ditching. The annual 

 crop before my improvement was not worth a shilling 

 per acre: it was buck horn and low bushes. This 

 meadow has been pared with a topping knife to the 

 depth of three and four inches, according to the depth 

 of the wild grass and roots, then cut into squares of fif- 

 teen inches and inverted. Coarse stable manure has 

 been wheeled on, potatoes dropped and covered with 

 the loosest sods. Little labor is required in hoeing. 

 The crops of potatoes have been good in quantity, and 

 excellent in quality. Till this year, when a part of the 



