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Dr. Peck, Mr. Bridger and other gentlemen, have supplied me with much valuable information in reference to the practical management of these lands, which seems to be combined in the following conclusions. Rye or buckwheat, in a fair yield, can be relied on upon the new land without manure. Mr. Bridger remarks: "sow with buckwheat, with a dressing of one hundred and twenty-five pounds of Peruvian guano, or twenty bushels of shell lime, or ten to twenty bushels of bone chips; plow the crop under; sow again, if practicable, with buckwheat if not with rye; seed with clover, plow under one good sward of that, and you are all right." "Corn, potatoes, or indeed any crop may be obtained by using three or four hundred pounds of Peruvian Guano, at three cents per lb., or five hundred pounds fish guano, at one and a half cents, or fifteen thousand fish, at $1 per M. To produce hoed crops successfully, some stimulating manure is necessary. The best I have tried is, first, barn-yard manure; next, bone dust, lime, salt and ashes mixed together, are good; gypsum also succeeds, although science may condemn it in a marine atmosphere. Clover, however, will be the great agency in bringing the land into good condition, and that can be produced here equal to any section of the country.
Gardens and Orchards.—The course of discussion which I have pursued has led me to examine the plains in reference chiefly to their capabilities for agricultural purposes. A still more desirable and lucrative occupation of this land, will be found in its appropriation for gardens, orchards, and the smaller fruits. A warm and quick soil, a genial climate and moist atmosphere, combine to eminently adapt Long Island to these pursuits. The plains are no exception to this remark. Two years ago I visited a peach orchard in the vicinity of North Islip Station, then just planted. In the season of 1858, it yielded an abundant harvest of the choicest fruit, and the orchard now exhibits a healthy and vigorous growth that can nowhere be excelled. Numerous other experiments with the peach, pear, cherry, apple and plum, have met with equally successful results. I saw young apple trees on the grounds of Mr. Bridger which bore the second year from the nursery. These, and trees of other fruits, disclosed a heavy growth of twenty inches to three feet, last season.
The blackberry, raspberry, and other small fruits, flourish on this soil in a vigorous and luxuriant growth. The strawberry is equally prolific and successful. The culture of the low or swamp cranberry, is a novel but highly interesting feature in the horticultural industry of the Island. The experiment of Mr. Young and its eminent success, has attracted much attention to this subject, and there is every indication that this culture will be widely extended and become a lucrative pursuit. The ground occupied by Mr. Young for this purpose, is at Lakeland, in the central part of the Bush plains. The cranberries he cultivates, are procured with trifling expense along the margins of the swamps in the vicinity where they grow spontaneously, and in great profusion. He planted in the year 1856, about one-third of an acre of plain land to the cranberry, and in the autumn of
