0*5(> BOTANICAL SURVKV OF DISMAL SWAMP REGION. 



without, conforming to the shape of the holds, and bolter drainage 

 may be secured wit h shorter ditches limn would be the ease with open 

 ones which have to follow the borders of tields. This also may reduce 

 the amount of excavating. 



By the use of tiles all open ditches excepting main ones are done 

 away with. Instead of many small fields, bounded on all sides by 

 deep ditches, entailing much turning with teams and implements in 

 the process of plowing and cultivating the crop, the whole farm may 

 be in a single held. The small fields are accessible at one point only 

 by means of abridge. The ditches occupy much land and afford a 

 harbor for weeds and noxious plants, which have to be cut down 

 annually and removed at much expense. 



A farm of 800 acres on the west side of the Dismal Swamp canal 

 has open ditches every 400 yards one way and every 100 yards the 

 other. This makes each of the small fields contain about 8 acres. 

 There would be 100 of these fields in the whole farm, and the length 

 of ditches would therefore be 50,000 yards, or 28 miles. Assuming 

 that the width of land taken up by a ditch and its borders is 1 rod, 

 which is about the average, f><! acres would thus be occupied and would 

 produce nothing but weeds. This amounts to 7 per cent of the farm. 



The whole of the swamp is susceptible of drainage. As it has an 

 adequate fall for an artificial flow of waters and a subsoil sufficiently 

 sandy to admit free movement of water, the tiles need not be nearer 

 to each other than 300 feet. The vegetable matter in the soil would 

 prevent the banks of the necessary open ditches from caving badly. 



During the last two years the Dismal Swamp canal has been con- 

 siderably deepened, and all locks except one at each end have been 

 removed. The water, therefore, now stands some i> feet lower than it 

 formerly did, and this will afford ample outlet for all of the district 

 west of it. By running tributary ditches west from the canal at 

 intervals of every l> miles and extending them back to near the 

 Nansemond Escarpment, a distance of about 10 miles, the whole of 

 this area could be easily drained. These tributary ditches should be 

 S or 10 feet wide where they enter the canal and of a depth of 2 or 3 

 feet below the level of low water in the canal. It might be advisable 

 to have here and there smaller ditches tributary to these main ones, 

 owing to some local peculiarity in the lay of the land, but most likely 

 the entire remainder of the drainage could be done by tiling. 



It is somewhat a question if, with the present demand for agricul- 

 tural lands, it would pay to deforest and drain these swamp lands to 

 be used in producing corn, as the redeemed portions are at present 

 largely employed. It would hardly seem probable that this region 

 could compete with the corn States of the Ohio and Mississippi val- 

 leys, where the land is easily brought under cultivation ami the best 

 methods and machinery are used in its production. Nevertheless, as 



