Rutland weekly herald. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1859-1877, 1873-07-03
From the Country Gentleman.l
Reuovating Exhausted Light
Lands.

Editors Country Gentleman: In your
issue of April oath, Royal Smith, of
Franklin Co, Mass, has a good. COM
mon sense article under the above head
ing. have all my life long been ac-
quainted with what is here termed
"pine lands or pine plains" Mr.. 5. has
described them so accurately that Ineed
not repeat his remarks.
Some thirty years ago, a Mr.. A. saw
a farm advertised for sale in this town.
Early in July he came and examined
the farm, and was much pleased with
its appearance. 1t was well located,
and had good set Of nearly new farm
buildings, some 40 acres of level, easily
titled pine plains, 20 acres of interval
land, rocky, upland pasture, and a full
supply of wood and timber At the
time A. visited the farm in July, the
field crops, potatoes, grain and grapes,
were all mpant-first-rate. A sale
was readily effected Mr.. A. was high
ly elated with his purchase. Immedi-
ately after, a severe drought set in, the
corn was severely injured, the potatoes
would scarcely pay for harvesting. The
moving fields were ''done brown" In
September Mr.. 4. revisited his recently
purchased farm, ana was struck with
the contrast, in the appearance of
the titled crops and moving fields at
that time, and when he made the pur-
chase, and Ito use a common eXpression)
she was so terribly sick of his bargain"
that he offered to re-deed the farm, and
pay Mr.. J. $500 to be released. This
offer was refused. Mr.. A. called upon
me to make some inquiries, saying all
his previous farming had been upon
rocky upland, where it was seldom that
the crops were very badly injured by
the drouths of August and September;
but he had got tired of working among
the rocks, had sold his farm and pur-
chased Mr.. j. pine land farm because
it could be so much easier carried on,
but was not aware of its liability to suf-
fer from drouths, as he had recently
learned. | told him not to be discour-
aged, taking a series of ten years-and
he could raise corn, grain, potatoes and
hay, at a much cheaper rate than these
crops could be grown on the hill farms
told him that / had recently read in
the (old) New England Farmer, expert
ments by Col. VIM. Clark, jr of North
ampton, Mass, who had been very sue
cessful in managing these light soils, and
at Mr.. Az request | wrote to Col. T..
and in due course of mail received let
ter in answer to my inquiries. From
this letter | will furnish some extracts.
He said:
my first object has been to get grass
to grow on these lands, and the second,
to apply Mr.. Phinney's method, with
which | suppose you are familiar |
have been uniformly successful in re-
gard to the first, except in case of Sc
we're drouth and judging from the
short experience which | have had, [
know of no pine plain so poor as to be
incapable of becoming fair moving land
say one to one and half tons per
acre of clover, herds grass and redtop,
by the aid of little plaster, with suita-
BILE blowing and rolling, and suitable
supply of grass seed, even without ma
nure; and where manure can be suppli-
ed, the crops of course will be much
better. 1t manure is not applied, the
grass should remain and rot on the
ground, the first year at least, and never
be graZed, and a second blowing and
seeding be given before crop is taken
off Corn, small grain and root crops
easily follow on these lands after good
grass sward is obtained.
s'My course is, first, to pillow even and.
thoroughly the whole ground to the re-
quired depth-say at least four inches
deep, and as much deeper as the soil Gf
there is any will allow, to six or eight
inches; and after day or two to dry,