RECLAMATION OB^ TIDE LANDS. 391 



METHOD OF DOING THE WORK. 



Where the work is of sufficient magnitude and the ditches are large 

 enough, the use of a dredge of some type is the most economical way 

 of excavating them; but where the ditches are small, hand labor will 

 be found the most feasible. There are on the market some machines 

 for cutting small ditches, but they can not be successfully operated on 

 a soft marsh. 



SUBDRAINAGE. 



If it were practicable, tile drainage would be by far the best method 

 to use in the reclamation of salt marsh; but the soil conditions are 

 generally such that tile can not be used. The depth of the outlet in 

 most places is not sufficient to permit them to be laid on the solid 

 ground, and if laid in the muck above the sand and clay they would 

 settle out of alignment and fill with silt. It is highly probable that 

 after a term of years the marsh will settle and become sufficiently firm 

 to permit the use of tile in some of the ditches. 



TREATMENT OF SOIL. 



After the dikes or embankments have been completed so as to 

 exclude the tide and the drains constructed so as to collect the rain- 

 fall and seepage, and some reliable method provided for discharging 

 the water from within the inclosure, the soil must be prepared for 

 cultivation. The marine marshes are not all fertile. Some are bare 

 mud flats without vegetation, while others are covered with a heavy 

 growth of grass and reeds. Such differences are due mainly to the 

 age of the marsh and do not indicate its fertility. The tides deposit 

 such materials as they get, and if the materials are fertile so are the 

 marshes. As a rule those marshes that receive the wash from the 

 hillsides build up faster and are more fertile than those formed by the 

 slow action of the tides alone. If these mud flats were embanked 

 and the tide gates left open, so that the tide would enter, it would 

 greatly accelerate the deposit, and eel grass would soon spring up 

 and spread so as to cover the entire area. This growing grass would 

 retard the coming in and receding of the tide, hastening the deposi- 

 tion of the sediment, and the marsh would soon be built to the eleva- 

 tion of the high tide. 



Laboratory examinations show these marshes to be exceedingly 

 rich in the elements of fertility, but possessing from 1 to 5 per cent of 

 soluble matter, ^mostly salt left by the sea, which must be re- 

 moved before the land is fit for agricultm-e. The usual way is to 

 allow the rain to wash out the salt. This is a slow process, but is 

 the one generally followed. The length of time required to complete 

 this treatment depends upon the frequency and amount of rainfall 



