70 On reclaiming Marsh Land. 



even the very high parts may have become too com- 

 pact, or (as it is called by the farmers) bound, to 

 yield that productive burden which might be expected 

 from them ; wherefore, that the surface of the meadow 

 might again be vivified, or, as it were brought to hfe, from 

 that dead state in which it is commonly said to be, when 

 bound, recourse should be had to irrigation. It is a com- 

 mon practice with some of our farmers to let the water 

 on their meadows about New Year's day, and so continue 

 it until the vegetation shews itself in the spring, and when 

 drawn off the surface, they often have the appearance of a 

 beautiful green wheat field. Preparatory to irrigating, the 

 sluices should have doors hung to their in-ends, so as to 

 admit the tide, and, by shutting down, to prevent it from 

 running out again. There should also be a number of 

 trunks made from two to three feet square, and a few feet 

 longer than the width of the bank ; the number of these 

 trunks should be in proportion to the number of acres to 

 be irrigated, say one to about thirty acres. These trunks 

 are laid in the tide bank opposite the highest parts of the 

 meadow, and on a level with its surface, so that every 

 flood might pass into it from the different parts of the bank 

 at one and the same time, through these trunks and 

 sluices ; and on every ebbing of the tide might leave its 

 sediment incorporated with the dead and decaying vege- 

 tables of the surface, which, by its daily increasing in 

 quantity, augments its weight upon the falling rubbish, 

 and v/ith it, affords the richest nutriment to the expected 

 crop of grass. That a farmer might have the benefit of 

 the early crop of good grass, such as timothy or green 

 crass, which might be cut in all the month of June, and 

 also improve the more inferior parts of his meadow by 

 sowing grass seed on such parts as had not taken, he 

 could, on or about the first of July, let the tide on them 

 by the above method, and continue the process until the 



