AND WHERE TO FIXD ONE. 127 



cultivate the way traffic of the country through 

 which they pass. The directors were as studious of 

 the interest of the man whose whole freight was 



O 



contained in a single milk-can, as of his who brought 

 a load of wheat. Thus, let the farmer grow what 

 ever crop he considered best, he could rely upon 

 the railroad to convey it punctually and cheaply to 

 the adjacent market. It is the combination of such 

 facilities that gives value to land. Without such 

 combination in the present case, the swamp referred 

 to would have been dear at any price. 



Hence, in the purchase and reclamation of a 

 swamp, reference must not only be had to how 

 cheaply it may be brought into tillage, but how near 

 may be the market for its products, because the 

 nearer it may be to market, the higher will be the 

 prices to be obtained for them. The first charge 

 on agricultural productions is that of freight the 

 cost of moving them to market from, the spot where 

 on they were grown. 



The swamp was a parallelogram, with a water 

 course running professedly from end to end, but by 

 courses surprisingly tortuous. There was a good 

 natural fall, but the stream had become dull and 

 lazy from a thousand obstructions, such as fallen 

 trees, clumps of alders, old roots, and sandbars. At 

 its lower end an ample outlet could be created, 

 through which any volume of water from above 

 would flow off rapidly whenever the outlet should 

 be opened. These important facts had been noted 

 before the purchase was made. When the fences 

 had been shifted by the lines of the tract, an acre 



