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On reclaimi?!!^ Marsh Land. By R, G. Johnson. 



Salem, (N. J.J Feb. 10, 1819- 



8rR, 



Being disposed to submit my observations and 

 experience in practical agriculture, for a period of twenty- 

 eight years past, to the perusal of the readers of the 

 *» Memoirs of the Philadelphia Society for promoting 

 agriculture/' I shall be sufficiently gratified should any 

 thing be gleaned from what I have written, which may 

 tend to throw some light upon a subject connected with 

 rural economy, and which, in some parts of our country, 

 is but imperfectly understood : I mean the reclaiming and 

 bringing into a dry and profitable state, the numerous 

 wild marshes, which line our bay, river, and creeks. 



The wild marshes are made from the sediment carried 

 on them by the flowing of the tides, and deposited among 

 the different species of wild grass which every season 

 spring up, and in the autumn decay, and then become 

 Incorporated with the sediment of the preceding year, 

 mixing with the various putrescent animal and vegetable 

 substances of which the quagmire is composed. Fromi 

 this mass is produced a soil, which, when brought into 

 good cultivation, continues its extraordinary fertility for 

 many years. I have observed that on such marshes the 

 line of distinction may be easily traced by the effects of 

 the salt, and then brackish water upon the numerous spe- 

 cies of aquatic plants which grow thereon. As far up 

 the Delaware as Reedy Island, grow two species of salt 

 grass— the rosemary salt-sedge, and the red salt-sedge^ 

 and ^wo species of reeds ; from thence> to about the 

 O 



