On reclaiming Marsh Land. 65 



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young reeds, or any long grass. Alternate layers of 

 such materials being incorporated with the soft mud, 

 give it such tenacity, as that the workmen can carry up 

 the dam to its proper height and shape. The width of 

 such a dam would be from thirty to thirty-four feet, and 

 the work when completed would exhibit a view, from 

 the edge of the water at low tide to the top of the bank, 

 a slope at or about an angle of fifty degrees. Before the 

 work of filling up the breach is fairly entered upon, I con- 

 sider it safest to guard the opposite side by running off a 

 crib, some ten or twenty feet, and securing it b} good 

 mud packed within ; for as the work advances aod the 

 width of the breach lessens, so in the same propoj tion, 

 will the rapidity of the current increase. As the work 

 advances, it would be advisable always to let the sluice 

 doors be open to admit the tide into the mar'^h, ar<d to 

 keep up a pressure on both sides of the dam as nearly 

 equal as possible. 



DITCHES» 



The marsh being perfectly enclosed, and the tide ex- 

 cluded, it is now necessary to have it divided into lots oi: 

 such size as may be most easily put into and kept in a 

 dry and improvable state. In whatever number of acres 

 the owner may choose to have his lots, they shi^uld be so 

 laid off, as that the ditches dividing theni should run per- 

 pendicularly from the bank towards the centre of the 

 marsh, and be not more than from twenty to thirty r^ods 

 distance from each other in good mud ; but where the 

 mud is of a light fibrous texture, (^uch as is vulgarly call- 

 ed horse dung or peat,) the ditches should not be more 

 than twelve roods apart. The re-c^son I would assign for 

 such a division is this, that in irrigating such gror.r«Js the 

 water can pass with facility along the ditchts, and spread 

 its fertilising qualities through all parts of the meadows ; 



