Seventy-Tiiikd Annual Report 1189 



place where we can make surveys out of our funds — preliminary 

 surveys — and start a tremendous movement to reclaim fifteen 

 million acres of land now sunken under water, 



Mk. Anderson : What was the actual cost per acre for im- 

 proving the land near Canaseraga Creek ? 



Me. Mooke: It will be about $20 per acre. The total fund 

 was $200,000 and we are satisfied we can do it within the appro- 

 priation. The land is worth easily over $100 per acre, some would 

 run as high as $125 per acre. 



Hon. J. W. Wadswoktii, Jk. : I am somewhat familiar with 

 this arrangement at Canaseraga because I live on its banks. The 

 air line, as I remember it from the figures, is about 14 miles. The 

 creek travels in its natural bed something like 34 miles. It is a 

 fact that a great many hundred acres of land near Groton Station 

 had not been worth $10 per acre and had gradually grown up 

 into waste land because the water coming down in the spring floods 

 never got off the land until too late to put in a crop. I am in- 

 formed that along the lines already suggested, although the work 

 is practically only half completed, substantial improvement has 

 been shown. 



The Commissioner has indicated that difficulties have been 

 raised by the property o^vners in the neighborhood. This is true 

 to an extent that has aroused the minds of many of us who wanted 

 to see the work done. It may be said, I think, that this is the first 

 time anything of the sort has been undertaken on any large 

 scale in the Slate of iSTew York. It involves the reclamation of 

 some thousands of acres and it is not at all unnatural that some 

 people should be suspicious as to what they are going to get out 

 of it. We had many complications and it required an additional 

 act of the legislature for every one of the six years I was a member 

 of it trying to perfect that law and make the work practicable. 

 Some have stood in the way and we have adopted various in- 

 genious methods to get around the difficulties, as suggested by 

 the Commissioner. The public sentiment of the comiiniiiity, how- 

 ever, is certainly back of this proposition and we all look now 

 for its ultimate success. It ought to furnish an example to com- 

 nnniities simihirly situated, for if some provision of law could be 

 made that would do away with the idea that the state may only 



