The Casino, Manor House and Dining-room 



Notable American Homes 



By Barr Ferree 



"CONYERS MANOR" 

 A Twelve-hundred Acre Estate at Greenwich, Connecticut, the Home of E. C. Converse, Esq. 



|HE reclaiming of twelve hundred acres 

 from barrenness and waste is the problem 

 Mr. E. C. Converse has set himself on his 

 great property at Greenwich, Conn. It is 

 a task of unusual magnitude, and while the 

 work was begun as recently as 1903, the 

 progress thus far made is more than sub- 

 stantial, and the estate already ranks among the great es- 

 tates of America. It is easily that, not only because of its 

 area, but because of the vast labor necessary to bring it 

 under cultivation and the notable results already secured. 



The first problem here was the reclaiming of the land, 

 meaning by that bringing it into a state suitable for cultiva- 

 tion. Originally much of the soil was poor and had run 

 to waste; there were great fields of boulders and loose stones 

 and immense stretches of soft land or marshy meadows. 

 Moreover, while most of the land is high and hilly, the top 

 soil rests on a stratum of hard pan only a few inches below 

 the surface. An elaborate and costly system of sub-surface 

 drainage was found necessary, and while the estate includes 

 many acres of woodland, it is only possible to plant trees on 

 the treeless uplands by inserting drainage pipes for the re- 

 moval of the water that will collect around their roots in 

 the course of a single night. Operations looking for the 

 correction of such defects in a small area would be difficult 

 enough ; but when extended to twelve hundred acres the 

 work becomes colossal and ranks as a notable engineering 

 achievement quite as much as a brilliantly successful farm- 

 ing experiment. 



But the work had to be done, and an army of men was 

 put at it. At one time as many as a thousand men were em- 

 ployed for months in setting this great property in order, 

 and even now more than two hundred are necessary for its 

 maintenance and the continuance of the work of restoration. 

 The fields were cleared of loose stones, while the larger 



boulders were sunk far below the surface. Ditches and 

 drains were prepared for the wet lands and the waste water 

 collected and carried away, taking with it, among other 

 plagues, the native mosquito, which has practically disap- 

 peared, Land which had never before been plowed, or 

 which had never been cultivatetd for more than a generation, 

 was quickly brought under cultivation and put immediately 

 to farming use, for "Conyers Manor" is not an ornamental 

 property, but a great farm, conducted as a commercial 

 proposition, the surplus products sold and a strict watch 

 kept over income and expenditures. The latter have, of 

 course, far outbalanced the other as yet, but with the con- 

 tinued application of scientific principles and the comple- 

 tion of the preliminary work of land restoration, much may 

 still be looked for in reaching a self-supporting end. This, 

 it is but just to add, is not Mr. Converse's end and aim, but 

 that these questions should be considered thus early in the 

 life of the estate, and substantial results actually obtained, 

 give a special interest to it that may, in time, be its most 

 notable feature. 



Wherever possible anything existing that was available 

 for future use was retained and restored. Great old apple 

 orchards that seemed hopelessly lost from the ravages of 

 scale and old age were given a fresh lease of life and the trees 

 brought back into perfect condition. Farmhouses and other 

 buildings that were capable of renewed use were repaired 

 and utilized, but the larger part of the old structures were 

 removed and the splendid new buildings of the new estate 

 took their place. Miles of roadway were laid out, certainly 

 as many as ten miles within the boundary lines. Except the 

 main drive from the gate lodge to the house, which is 

 macadam, these are earth roads with stone foundations, 

 thoroughly made and admirably adapted to their use. The 

 stones gathered up from the fields were quickly put into 

 boundary walls, some laid up with cement, some dry-laid 



