ON MEADOW AND SWAMP LANDS. 73 



water from the high grounds and conducting it to the 

 main ditch. These have laid the meadow sufficiently 

 dry. 



in March, 1840, while the meadow was frozen, I haul- 

 ed upon three quarters of an acre, sand and gravel from 

 a hill near by, sufhcient to give the surface a thin coating, 

 and keep down the grass ; this was spread in June, and 

 herds-grass and red-top seed sown upon it the Septem- 

 ber following, after having spread upon the gravel about 

 ninety bushels of leached ashes. The crop of hay in 

 1841 was at the rate of two tons to the acre — in 1842, 

 two and a half tons at the first cutting. 



The present season, no top dressing having been ap- 

 plied since the ashes, except a light dressing of rock- 

 weed in May last, which the dryness of the season pre- 

 vented from having the desired effect, the crop of hay 

 was at the rate of two tons. The second growth was 

 large. This has been fed lightly, and the remainder 

 now covers the ground. 



Other portions of the meadow have been treated in 

 the same way, with a similar result. In October, 1842, I 

 plowed about half an acre, by attaching a plow- to a pair 

 of wheels, the oxen driven on the turf, the meadow too 

 soft for the off oxen to walk in the furrow. This was 

 planted in May with potatoes, — chenango and long 

 blues. The chenangoes were dug for market before at- 

 taining their growth, producing fifty bushels. The blue 

 potatoes growing on twenty-seven rods, produced sixty 

 bushels of very large and fine potatoes. 



I have also made an experiment upon a piece of 

 swamp land chiefly covered with banks of bushes, water 

 standing between them through the year, rendering the 

 land nearly worthless, being too wet for trees to grow. 

 I opened the outlet sufficiently to drain off the water ; 

 with two yoke of oxen hauled up the banks and bushes, 

 which, when dry, were burnt ; — run ditches parallel to 

 the main ditch and emptying into it, and turned the fur- 

 rows towards the centre of each bed from the ditches. 

 The black mud, from eight to twelve inches in depth, 

 resting on a subsoil inclining to a sandy clay. On a 



10 



