314 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Special Meeting December 23. 

 At this meeting, also held at Benton Harbor, S. H. Coinings read an essay on 



IMPROVEMENT OF SWAMP LANDS FOR FRUIT AND OTHER PURPOSES. 



which is given as follows : 



For several years past my attention has been particularly called to the value 

 of swamp lands for fruit and other purposes. For ages these swamps have been 

 the receptacles into which have been wafted the falling leaves from the sur- 

 rounding uplands, and into which the wash of the floods has brought abundant 

 elements of fertility, which have been here well preserved by water from the 

 dissipating effects of the air, and are only waiting for the skill of man to give up 

 their rich stores in abundant and long-continued crops of most desirable 

 products. 



All about us these swamp lands are lying idle and useless, yielding their 

 annual crop of town, county, and Slate taxes, — profitable to the tax collector, 

 but sadly unremunerative to the owner. 



The cranberry and whortleberry, two of our most universally popular fruits, 

 are natives of these swamps, and have grown luxuriantly among the ferns and 

 mosses, until the fires of the white man have destroyed them. 



The cranberry has become almost extinct in a wild state, and the whortle- 

 berry so scarce as to bring higher prices than almost any of our most popular 

 cultivated berries, and will soon disappear from our markets unless its culture 

 is undertaken, and the proper means for its profitable growth learned. The 

 price for whortleberries has been from $2.00 to $4.00 per bushel for several 

 years past. From my observations I am well satisfied that the berry can be as 

 readily improved in size and productiveness by improved conditions of growth 

 as the cranberry, and similar conditions of summer drainage and winter flood- 

 ing seem to favor its best growth ; and as it would require no annual expense 

 for culture, it would be a very profitable fruit. 



Like all other new branches of agriculture this will well repay care and 

 study to know how best to reclaim these waste swamp lands, and to know 

 which variety of fruit or crop is best adapted to particular lands. But this 

 may not be a difficult lesson, and Avhen studied, we may find, like the early 

 miners in Colorado, that we have blundered over our richest "carbonates,'*' 

 and dug for less rich ores in other places. 



I am told that much of the most valuable productive lands in Ireland were 

 originally peat bogs, like our peat and muck swamps, which have been deeply 

 and thoroughly drained, and are now almost exhaustless in fertility. 



The whole country of Holland is also a reclaimed swamp. 



Near Grand Eapids, in this State, I was shown a former floating-marsh, 

 which has recently been reclaimed, and splendid crops of celery are now grown 

 where a few years since was a worthless swamp. 



In Connecticut large crops of onions are grown on reclaimed peat lands. 

 This is rather strongly flavored "fruit," but quite valuable, withal. 



From all these facts, it seems well worth while to be looking up our swamp 

 lands, and endeavor by intelligent effort to so improve them as to obtain the 

 valuable products they are so capable of yielding us. 



The writer has cut from three to four tons of splendid blue-joint hay per 

 acre, on laud in Wisconsin that had been a deep, wet, floating cranberry marsh, 

 a few years before. During a dry time a severe fire swept over it, and along 



