1871. 



NEW ENGLAND FAEMER. 



265 



stream 



"WET LANDS, 



ERY recently we stood 

 looking upon a narrow 

 valley of wet land, with a 

 meandering through it. 

 ^y This was in former times the bed 

 i ^^7^^ of a mill pond. The low land 

 yi^y varies in width from three to 

 thirty rods. It belongs to per- 

 haps a dozen individuals who are the owners 

 of the hard land abutting upon it. The 

 stream comes from a swamp, perhaps a mile 

 and a half distant. 



This low land has all been cleared up, not a 

 stump or clump of bushes can be found upon 

 it. Much of it has been dressed with sand 

 and gravel. Portions of it have been ploughed 

 and sowed with herdsgrass and red top, and 

 dressed with manure. It is all in grass, yield- 

 ing large crops of hay ; most of it is mowed 

 twice a year. AVhere it is top dressed once in 

 two or three years, the hay is of the best 

 quality. Where it is not, the meadow grasses 

 come in rapidly and mix with the sweet grass, 

 showing the tenacity of life which the meadow 

 grasses possess. 



There is no more valuable land in the 

 vicinity, — it requires attention and some labor 

 to keep it in good condition, but the increased 

 value of good hay over that of the meadow 

 hay, will well repay the cost and labor of top 

 dressing. 



Another instance occurs to us in which a«gen- 

 tleman owned a piece of wet meadow which was 

 overflowed two or three times a year — the 

 water often remaining upon it many days. 

 This could not be drained. But there was a 

 bank of sand and gravel adjoining it. The j 

 owner covered a portion of this meadow with 

 this sand and gravel in the winter, when the soil 

 was frozen. In the spring he sowed it with 

 herdsgrass and red top, spread on a small 

 quantity of manure and harrowed it smooth, 

 and cut several large crops of good hay in 

 succession. Where he cut a small quantity of 

 sour meadow hay before, he now cuts three 

 tons to the acre of fine hay. 



You will say this is not permanent improve- 

 ment of .land ; it will soon run back into the 

 condition of meadow land. True, it will re- 

 quire attention. It must be top dressed with 

 upland soil or manure, or both, and perhaps 

 re-seeded once in two or three years, and this 

 implies lalior and expense. Hut what land 



can you keep in good condition without labor 

 and expense? Light upland soil will require 

 twenty-five or thirty loads of manure to be 

 teamed on to it. It must be ploughed and 

 sanded and harrowed, and this process must 

 be repeated once in four or five years, and 

 then you will get one ton of good hay to the 

 acre ; whereas you would get two tons on the 

 meadow, and in addition to the cost of the 

 labor, there is the value of the manure which 

 you want for other crops than grass. 



The upland soil which you put upon the 

 meadow costs nothing but the labor. The 

 actual cost of keeping such a piece of meadow 

 in good condition, is less than that of keeping 

 a light sandy soil in good condition ; the im- 

 provement is quite as permanent, and the 

 profit much greater. 



There have been many pieces of meadow 

 land reclaimed in this way,' as experiments ; 

 and although the experiments have been suc- 

 cessful, — that is, have well repaid the labor, — 

 they have been neglected, and suffered to run 

 back into their former condition. Their own- 

 ers have been disappointed, because the im- 

 provement has not proved permanent. They 

 expected that good grasses once rooted in the 

 soil would continue to yield good crops for 

 many years. 



But have they any land that will do this, 

 without a constant renewal of the elements of 

 fertility in some way ? Even the rich wheat 

 lands of the West soon become exhausted 

 without top dressing, or bringing up from 

 below new strata of soil to be oxydized by the 

 atmosphere and fitted to add new elements of 

 fertility to the seed bed of the wheat. 



There is no crop so easily renewed and 

 kept in good condition as grass. A dressing 

 of fresh unexhausted soil will produce for 

 grass the same result that a dressing of ma- 

 nure will produce for most other crops. The 

 soil, — it may be mostly sand thrown from a 

 deep ditch and left exposed to the frost and 

 air for a year or two, and then spread upon 

 the adjacent land, — will sometimes increase the 

 quantity and improve the quality of the grass 

 surprisingly. The gravel and clay from a 

 well or the bottom of a cellar, spread upon 

 grass, especially if the soil is moist, will some- 

 times produce wonderful results. 



Does this show the advantage of deep 

 ploughing, especially of deep fall ploughing, 



