66 MIDDLESEX SOCIETY. 



about four inches, (there still being frost enough left in the 

 ground to bear up my team,) then harrow it until the mud and 

 gravel are well mixed, then let it remain until July. I then sow 

 on about one and one half bushels of oats, one peck of herd's 

 grass, and half bushel of red top seed, per acre — then harrow 

 or rake them in, as the ground admits. The oats I let stand 

 until they are ripe, which will be about September. I have 

 manured with compost at the rate of twelve loads to the acre, 

 soon after taking the oats off; and t have let it remain until late 

 in the fall, then manured ; and I have let it remain until spring, 

 and then manured ; but there was but little difference in the 

 crop of grass. 



The hay on the ground that I laid down last year, in the 

 manner described, was estimated at three tons per acre by good 

 judges ; there was no one set it at less than two and one half 

 tons per acre, and you can judge something of the first crop, by 

 what there was on the ground for a second. As for the growth 

 before I drained and ploughed it, it yielded water-grass or cot- 

 ton-head, as it is sometimes called — buckthorn, water-brush and 

 blue vengeance ; the grass would very little, if any thing, more 

 than pay for cutting ; the value of the land must have been 

 small — ^I think it will as well pay the interest of one hundred 

 dollars per acre now, as it would ten dollars before I ploughed 

 it. As to the expense of reclaiming, it is impossible for me to 

 state the exact sum, as I have always done it as a woman knits 

 her stocking, that is, by odd jobs ; the nearest I can come at it 

 is by what it cost me to do a piece last winter — that was about 

 nine dollars per acre for gravelling : the ploughing must vary 

 according to the nature of the mud ; probably the whole expense 

 of ploughing, gravelling and sowing cost not far from twenty 

 dollars per acre. The mud is of a fine, black, crumbly nature, 

 and varies in depth from fifteen inches to fifteen feet; the bot- 

 tom is generally a fine white sand, and generally, when striking 

 a shovel into it, the water oozes out very freely. 



I drain by digging a ditch in the lowest part of the meadow, 

 and another near the hard land, which, as necessity requires, I 

 empty into the main ditch ; the latter I prefer, having what is 

 called a blind ditch. By ploughing, 1 think the poorer grasses 



