probably exceeds 200,000 acres, the money value of their best state will amount 

 to at least $40,000,000. The cost of reclaiming these lands and reducing them 

 to cultivation should not exceed the fifth of this sum. 



In European countries salt marshes are regarded as the most fertile 

 of lands. Large areas in Holland, Denmark, Germany, and Belgium 

 have been cultivated for many years. In England the Fens to the 

 extent of probably more than 1,000,000' acres have been diked and 

 ditched and are now in a "state of matchless fertility." 



The reclamation of tidal lands to be successful at a minimum expense 

 should be managed by a man of experience in such matters. The ques- 

 tion of how to build dikes, the cheapest and most efficient method of 

 drainage to be emploj^ed, and the subsequent management of the soil 

 to bring it into a state of fertility at the earliest possible moment, are 

 all problems which require experience and judgment if the work is to 

 be a success. Unfortunately, in America there are no trained agricul- 

 tural engineers, nor is there an institution of learning which claims to 

 train expert agricultural engineers. The best person, then, to plan and 

 manage the reclamation is a civil engineer who has had experience in 

 some related work. Men of experience have a habit of charging well 

 for their services, but the money spent in fees to the right man is well 

 invested. Diking and ditching done by inexperienced or careless per- 

 sons will require more in repairs each year than would have been neces- 

 sary to insure proper supervision in the first instance. 

 Shaler (Loc. cit., p. 377) very aptly says: 



Where efforts have been made to exclude the sea and actually till the land 

 ,they have sometimes been unsuccessful,- owing to the failure of those who car- 

 ried on the trial to see the true condition of the work. It is very much to be 

 regretted that these experiments are not directed by some one trained in the 

 work as it is effected on the northern shores of Europe, who could have brought 

 to the task the accumulated experience of centuries ; if this had been done it is 

 tolerably certain that the process of turning these American marshes to agricul- 

 ture would now be well advanced. 



RECLAMATION OF TIDAL MARSHES. 



The first step in the reclamation of tidal marshes is the exclusion of 

 the sea. Ordinarily the marshes are covered by sea water only at high 

 tide some of them at every high tide and others only at the highest or 

 spring tides. Salt water is harmful to most all plants and its 

 presence in the soil will effectively prevent the growth of ordinary farm 

 crops. To exclude the sea a dike or embankment must be built at least 

 2 feet higher than the highest tide. The method of building such dikes 

 must, of course, depend upon the locality, the exposure to wave action, 

 and the kind of dike-building material at hand. The material in most 

 common use is the sod and soil from the marsh itself. It is cut from the 

 swamp just inside of the position to be occupied by the dike and the exca- 



