14 



Cftowio* and making, and was often injured in curing:, by its be* 

 ing so wet, and for one or two years was overflowed whea 

 partly dry. 



1 kept the land in this situation two or three years, and found 

 the income of the low part of it small and uncertain. I then 

 commenced ditching it, and found it a clay and sand bottom, 

 with from ten to fifteen inches of soil. I first made the ditch 

 through my neighbour''s land and the passage under the town 

 bridge as much wider and deeper as circumstances would allow, 

 which then let off the water so as to prevent my land being 

 overflowed either in summer or winter. I then began to cart 

 the fine dirt and earth from the ditch on to the centre of the 

 land, to make it the highest ; and all the sods and coarse part* 

 that would not spread and harrow fine, I carried to my manure 

 heap. 



At this time I selected a spot near this land, and also near my 

 barn, &c. for making compost manure. It was on the south 

 9nd east side, near the bottom of a hill. I ploughed and dug off 

 the soil &c and made a basin about twenty feet wide and eighty 

 feet long, and about a foot or eighteen inches deep, as the hard 

 bottom and rocks would allow. I then commenced carting all 

 sods, green weeds, &c. from the ditches, all my barn manure, 

 dirtj old lime, &c. that vvas about my house and wharf, and also, 

 whatever could be scraped together, with kelp, rockweed and 

 eel grass, fee. that was left by the tide, as time and opportunity 

 admitted, which was all put into my heap and occsisionally sbov- 

 eled together, and generally at the end of the year was shovel- 

 ed all over and mixed once or twice and sometimes oftener, 

 and thrown into a ridge. 



In this manner I have made in the course of a year, from fifty 

 to one hundred loads of good manure, and some years more. 



I have generally carted it on as late in the spring as the frost 

 would allow, to get it on before the ground was too soft, but 

 sometimes I have put it on in July, after mowing, when the 

 grass had got considerably started, and I think I have fonnd the 

 most benefit from my manure when put on at this time. 



For the first ten years I made a practice of sowing grass seed 

 jpretty freely on the manure after it was spread j such ns herd's 





