90 INTEREST OF SUCH IMPROVEMENTS. 



which has always been carried off without any return, 

 still yields two tons of hay an acre. 



Cole s Island is a patch of rich upland, eighty acres in 

 extent, which rises in the middle of the Tantamare 

 Marsh, towards its lower part. It is held by six pro 

 prietors, each of whom owns also a large tract of the 

 adjoining marsh, and who, having no use for, or being 

 unaccustomed to employ, the manure made by the con 

 sumption of their hay, sell it to the adjoining farmers at 

 Is. 6d. a load. The mud itself is valued at Is. a load. 



I have said so much of these marsh-lands and opera 

 tions, not because there is much novelty in them, to us 

 in England, or anything to be brought in competition 

 with our own home operations in Lincolnshire and the 

 adjoining counties, with the persevering efforts of the 

 indomitable Dutch in Holland, or with the felicitous 

 colmata drainages of the Val di Chiana in Tuscany but 

 because of the interest which attaches to any attempts at 

 such methods of improvement in a new country like this, 

 where the population is still scanty, capital not abundant, 

 climate in winter severe, and markets not very acces-? 

 sible, and because these attempts are highly creditable 

 to the province itself in which they have been made. 



After returning from my tour of the marshes, and 

 from the inspection of Mr Crane s own farm, I started 

 for Dorchester. I went some miles out of my way to 

 visit the farm of Judge Botsford, the originator of one 

 of the canals I have spoken of, and the owner of about 

 two hundred acres of the marsh-land. I had not, how 

 ever, the pleasure of finding him at home, though I after 

 wards, at St John, had an opportunity of making his 

 acquaintance. 



On fairly getting behind the red-sandstone ridge on 

 which Sackville stands, we came upon poor, stony, indif 

 ferent land, resting upon grey sandstone dipping towards 

 the marshes, and thus apparently beneath the red sand- 



