EEP0RT9. 27 



REPORT ON RECLAIMED MEADOW LANDS. 



The Committee of the Hampshire Agricultural Society on " Re- 

 claimed Meadow Land,'' in examining five tracts in Hadley, Amherst 

 and Belchertown, have had their attention called to the importance 

 of this subject generally in its bearing upon the Agricultural interest 

 of this and of other counties in the Commonwealth. In the history 

 of the settlement and early growth of the Towns in Massachusetts, 

 as in the other States, the settlers brought into cultivation those por- 

 tions only of the forest-land which they could subdue with the great- 

 est ease and which would yield the quickest and largest returns ; 

 while those portions which required great expense and labor to be 

 brought under cultivation, and which would yield returns of profita- 

 ble crops but slowly, were suff"ered to remain wholly unimproved, or 

 were partially reclaimed, so far that they would yield some pasture, 

 or some coarse grass for the scythe. 



This mode of procedure might answer well enough while there was 

 an abundance of good land easily reclaimed, while the population 

 was sparse and the consumers comparatively few. But as the pop- 

 ulation increases, and the demand for Agricultural products in- 

 creases with the increased number of the consumers, the producers 

 must change their mode in this respect, and must put under cultiva- 

 tion a greater amount of fertile land in order to meet that demand. 



Now it is well known to those who have taken into consideration 

 the unimproved land in the several counties in the State, amounting 

 by the returns in the aggregate to seven hundred and fifteen thousand 

 two hundred and ninety-four acres, that a very large part of this 

 land, amounting, by the same returns, to four hundred and fifty seven 

 thousand two hundred and sixty-five acres grown up to wood and 

 bushes, or under the dominion of water, might be reclaimed and 

 made productive. 



Some land of this character has indeed been partially reclaimed ; 

 but trees and bushes, roots and stumps, stones in place and out of 

 place, obstruct the scythe and the rake. The ground is too wet and 

 soft for the plough and even for the cart. The grass is of but little 

 value for the purpose of nutrition, and if mowed, is used chiefly for 

 litter. 



But there are extensive tracts of low land in a still worse condition, 

 covered with sedge and brakes, bogs and moss, or so tangled with 

 bushes and trees, that as one remarked to the committee, a " grey rab- 

 bit could not find his way through it." Here gad-flies and bottle- 

 flies, mosquitoes and midges have their native home. Here frogs and 

 lizards, the water-snake and it may be the copper-head have their 

 haunts. From it evaporation chills the neighborhood, and malaria 

 generates disease and death. You step on it and it quakes beneath 



