HAMPDEN SOCIETY. 103 



(1838,) is impossible, — full of bushes, large pine stumps, old 

 logs, roots, bogs and brakes, mire holes and deep pits, swarms of 

 frogs, serpents and lizards, — it was literally a den of " creeping 

 things." One man in Chester (a poor man) had opened the 

 door to this bedlam, and, for many years, had the entire control 

 of the wild grass, which he carried out on poles, and paid annu- 

 ally $3. This lot lies concave. The depression, or swampy 

 portion, contains about six acres ; its sides or upland were full 

 of knolls and depressions, with briars, bushes, old logs and large 

 stones (boulders,) the most of them so large that they could not 

 be removed without blasting, and some from eight to ten feet in 

 diameter. 



In the summer of 1839, I employed two Irishmen, and com- 

 menced ditching. I put a large centre ditch from north to south, 

 and cross-ditches from the centre, east and west, to the more 

 elevated portions. The muck, in some portions of the centre 

 ditch, is from 6 to 8 feet deep, and gradually lessens as it ap- 

 proaches the upland. The bottom is a blue clay and white sand. 

 After cutting the centre ditch, I employed four men with scythes, 

 bush-hooks and axes, to cut off the grass and bushes, requiring 

 them to put all the bushes into heaps, and the grass was taken 

 off on poles, equal to two tons of good hay. The expense of 

 cutting and piling the brush, and getting the hay, was 45 days' 

 work, for which I paid $45. After my cross-ditches were cut, 

 I set fire to the heaps of brush, and in less than two hours the 

 whole lot presented one black, smoking surface, and for the first 

 time, probably, within the knowledge of man, it was thrown 

 open to the full influence of the sun. 



How it was possible, with any means I possessed, to remove 

 the hundreds of stumps, (and most of them large pine,) the 

 countless number of old logs, to fill up the great cavities, to re- 

 move the bogs, to dispose of the great rocks upon the upland, I 

 could not conceive. It had always been a principle with me 

 never to look back ; but then, this enterprise had been under- 

 taken against the advice of some of my best friends ; first, be- 

 cause it was impracticable, and secondly, because, from my 

 early youth, I had not been engaged in agricultural pursuits, and 

 must be ignorant, of course, of the best manner of conducting 



