230 



and grazing purposes, and the remainder valuable for its famous timber, it ha- 

 yet scarcely one hundred and twenty thousand inhabitants, and not over six per cent . 

 of its arable lands has j)assed into private ownership, while hardly two per cent. i> 

 under actual cultivation. Most of its arable land is in a series of valleys, well watered, 

 fertile and picturesque. It is a great wheat State. Its apple orchards are not equaled 

 anywhere in the East, and its climate favors a greater variety of products than any ol 

 the Northern States. It has mines of iron and coal, as well as of gold, silver, coppei 

 and lead. 



It is evident that California and Oreg'on are to be honorable competi- 

 tors in stimulating emigration westward, and the gain of one will be 

 measurably the gain of the other. Oregon unquestionably has the agri- 

 cultural, the commercial, and the mineral resources to make her one of 

 the most prosperous States of the Union ; her climate is inviting, and her 

 scenery is in some respects superior even to that of California. The board 

 of statistics, immigration, and labor exchange of Portland has recently 

 issued for gratuitous distribution a pamphlet of sixty-two pages, treat- 

 ing comprehensively of the State as an agricultural and commercial 

 region, and giving succinct information about its climate, people, mar- 

 kets, price of land, wages, cost and routes of travel, industries, re- 

 sources, and imi^rovements. This pamphlet may be obtained free of 

 charge by addressing John M. Drake, secretary Immigration and Labor 

 Exchange, Portland, Oregon. 



RECLAMATION OF TIDE LANDS IN SOUTHWESTERN NEW 



JERSEY. 



The following statement relative to the reclamation of tide lands in 

 the southwestern part of New Jersey is condensed from the report for 

 1869 of the State geologist. Professor George H. Cook. 



As early as the year 1700, marshes in the vicinity of Salem, New 

 Jersey, were diked and drained. At the i^resent time there are 15,000 

 acres of such reclaimed lands in Salem County, besides large areas in 

 Gloucester, in Cumberland, and in Cape May County". 



The work of reclamation is now in great measiu'e conducted by asso- 

 ciated enterprise, under a special State law, by one provision of which 

 no tract can be made subject to such improvement tmtil consent is ob- 

 tained from the owners of two-thirds of the territory in question. After 

 the necessary authority has been obtained and the preliminary surveys 

 completed, a ditch is dug on the site of the proposed embankment to 

 secure a good foundation, and outside of this another ditch sufficiently 

 wide to furnish the material of the embankment. Special attention is 

 given to securing a firm foundation, experience having fully demonstrat- 

 ed the necessity of care in this respect. " Cross embankments" built 

 across meadows, having but a thin layer of firm mud over a peaty sub- 

 stratum, have settled gradually till a solid bottom has been reached ; 

 in other cases they have sunk quickly out of sight. As soon as a marsh 

 is diked and drained the spongy soil commences to dry and the surface 

 gradually sinks. Tillage and the withdrawal of material by annual 

 cropping increases this subsidence of the soil, till in many cases the 

 meadow sinks to low-water mark, when the usual system of drainage 

 by ditches and sluices fails to free the land from accumulating moisture, 

 and cultivation becomes unprofitable. Skillful managers prefer to 

 counteract this sinking by allowing the tide to overflow the meadow in 

 the winter, during which jieriod a layer of mud, varying from a mere 

 film to twelve inches in thickness, is deposited. Where the surface has 



