RECLAIMING SWAMP-LANDS. 293 



fifteen feet deep, and it had a very soft, muddy bottom of 

 much greater depth. The swamp was composed of clumps of 

 blueberry and other bushes, brakes, and brambles ; and when 

 the water was high it was necessary to jump from one clump 

 of bushes to another to get through it, while the outer edge 

 and dryer portion had formerly been used as a peat-meadow, 

 and cut into ditches for the purpose of procuring fuel ; the 

 whole presenting an appearance as forbidding as could well 

 be conceived of for agricultural use. The outlet of the 

 pond was an open ditch, passing first over a gravelly bar, 

 and then through a , peat-meadow, where the peat was from 

 four to ten feet deep, with a fall of about three feet in 

 seventy-five rods. 



The first thing done was to begin in August, when the 

 water was low, at the lower part in the outlet, and dig a ditch 

 back towards the pond, as near level as would be safe ; that 

 is, allowing three inches' fall to a hundred feet distance. In 

 this ditch was placed a box-drain made of two-inch hemlock 

 plank for sides, and two thick pieces of one-inch board across 

 the top and bottom, with one foot area. This box-drain was 

 continued all the way to the pond, and finally covered with 

 the material dug out of the ditch. This drain lowered the 

 water of the pond and the whole of the swamp three feet. 

 This reduction of the water left a strip of flats uncovered 

 all around the pond, of from ten to twenty feet in width, 

 and caused the coarse, porous muck of the swamp to settle 

 some eighteen inches, and consolidate somewhat. The bushes 

 were cut ; the clumps of roots and hassocks were tumbled 

 into the peat-ditches and around the pond to extend the 

 breadth of land to the water. A ditch was dug around the 

 outer edge of the swamp, four or five feet deep and three 

 feet wide, and filled half full with stones, and covered about 

 two feet : this made an efficient drain to cut off any spring 

 water coming from the high land, and disposed of a large 

 quantity of stones that were in the way. Other ditches 

 were dug of the same size, from the box-drain across the 

 peat-meadow before spoken of, filled with brush, tramped 

 down, and covered over. The peat dug out of these ditches 

 was worth more than the cost of digging, either for compost- 

 ing, or for filling parts of the swamp where needed. 



The next winter, gravel was hauled from a bank near by, 



