2g BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



to the deltas of the lower Mississippi, the banked meadows of the 

 lower Delaware, the broad prairies of the West, or the rich lands 

 reclaimed from the sea in the Netherlands. 



The question now naturally suggests itself, can it be done ? Is 

 this practicable ? The answer I think, in most cases is — yes, it 

 can be done. It is an old but trite saying, " What man has done, 

 man may do." INfuch may be accomplished by the thorough 

 drainage of all Surface water when the tides are out. For salt 

 grass, like English, is very tenacious of its rights, and will not 

 budge a hair if you keep it standing constantly with its feet in 

 the water. The roots need the circulation of the air and the 

 warmth of the sun. Besides if the water is left to puddle on the 

 surface, the sod soon loses its tenacity, settles down, and a miry, 

 salt pond is formed. Draining also improves the quality and 

 quantity of hay, and renders the work of securing it less laborious. 

 But draining simply, is not sufficient. Land flowed twice in every 

 twenty-four hours of every month, cannot yield in kind and 

 quantity what such land is capable of producing, however com- 

 pletely you may draw off the sui'face water. Something more is 

 needed. That land must be lifted out of the water bodily, or 

 what is equivalent, the water must be shut out from it, and only 

 be allowed to come in at pleasure. And that this can be done, we 

 ihave satisfactory evidence in the numerous examples already 

 accomplished — not many to be sure, in our own State, but enough 

 lo establish the fact. In Massachusetts, Connecticut and New 

 Jersey, in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, on the Frith of Forth 

 und the river Don in Scotland, the Netherlands and various other 

 places on the continent, where dykes or embankments have been 

 .built to shut out water, and reclaim just such lands or marshes as 

 ,are under consideration ; and they have accomplished the object 

 in view. Some of them have been built more than one hundred 

 years, and long enough it is to be hoped, to satisfy the most 



incredulous. Every one may be convinced that it can be done at 



some cost, but every Yankee will want to know if it will pay ? 

 .This too can be answered with the same unerring certainty in the 



affirmative, from the same source ; and to show this more clearly, 



several instances will be cited : 



About the year 1800, two hundred and twenty-two acres on the 



river Ilallowdale, in Sutherland, were dyked, at a cost of £2,668. 



Before being dyked it rented at fifteen shillings per acre, yielding 



an income of £166. After it was dyked it rented for forty 



