180 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



lack of experience and undeveloped resources of that day. The General 

 Government, feeling- itself incompetent to deal with local interests of 

 this character, devolved the responsibility upon the State, to which it 

 granted all the swamp or overflowed lands within its borders. The 

 State legislature in turn left the practical solution of the problem to the 

 people of each separate locality. The statute of March 28, 1868, pre- 

 scribed methods by which landed proprietors, owning more than half the 

 area included in any particular "body of swamp and overflowed, salt- 

 marsh, or tide lands, susceptible of one mode of reclamation," might 

 incorporate themselves into an association for reclamation purposes. 

 Having determined upon such an organization, the parties interested 

 are directed to present to the board of supervisors of the county within 

 which the lauds are located, a petition praying for their incorporation 

 into a reclamation-district, and setting forth an accurate description of 

 the lands proposed to be reclaimed. After the performance of specified 

 requirements as to publication, &c., necessary to give due notice to all 

 parties in interest, the board of supervisors, if they find the facts cor- 

 rectly represented, and that no lands have been improperly included in 

 the proposed reclamation-district, note their approval, and the papers 

 are spread upon the county records, giving a corporate character to the 

 I)roposed organization. The corporators then elect a board of three trus- 

 tees to superintend the execution of the works. They are authorized " to 

 employ engineers and others to survey, plan, locate, and estimate the 

 cost of the work necessary for reclamation, the land needed for right of 

 way," &c. This cost is then assessed upon all the lands included in the 

 reclamation-district by a board of commissioners appointed by the county 

 board of supervisors. These assessments are reported to the county 

 treasurer, who collects them, with other taxes, and pays out the proceeds 

 upon the order of the board of trustees of the district. To encourage 

 the reclamation of lands under this law, by the spontaneous action of 

 the proprietors, it was further provided that the lands granted to the 

 State by the General Government as swamp or overflowed lands should 

 be sold at $1 per acre, in gold, which sum was to be refunded to the pur- 

 chaser upon the completion of a system of reclamation- works executed 

 according to law. 



The methods of operation proposed by this law were eminently judi- 

 cious considering existing circumstances. They stimulated local action 

 and inaugurated a series of experiments which, though frequently un- 

 successful, and sometimes, perhaps, disastrous, nevertheless bore good 

 fruit in revealing more clearly the nature of the work to be done, and 

 the fundamental conditions of final success. Local enterprise, though 

 prompt to recognize the more obvious abvantages of public improve- 

 ment, is too prone to a narrow and microscopic economy, and too impa- 

 tient to secure immediate results, to appreciate the policy of a large and 

 judicious expenditure. In some cases very simple and inexpensive works 

 were found sufficient to rescue large isolated tracts from the waters, and 

 to secure them against the highest floods that have been known since 

 the settlement of the State. But the success of these methods in a few- 

 localities was calculated to mislead enterprise in other localities. Nu- 

 merous ill-considered efforts were made to grapple with natural difficul- 

 ties by means of cheap and inadequate processes, resulting in serious 

 losses to the parties concerned. To meet those difficulties it was found 

 necessary to enlist broader and more intelligent public interests and to 

 bring to bear the resources of large capital and engineering science. 

 Large combinations are necessary to secure not only the greatest but 

 also the most economical results. This truth, so necessary to the com- 

 prehension of the problem, was recognized only after experience had 



