Part I.] REPORT OF SECRETARY. 33 



this year with the further amendment that the petition be filed 

 with the county commissioners instead of with the Superior 

 Court, as our courts are already overburdened with work. 



But this is not all our drainage program. In 1913 an act 

 was passed empowering the State Department of Health and 

 the State Board of Agriculture, acting jointly, actually to take 

 some land by purchase, gift or eminent domain, drain it, and 

 then sell it at cost; and $25,000 was given this Joint Board for 

 use in this work. No land was ever actually drained under this 

 act, however, as while preliminary surveys were still being 

 made the Legislature of the following year gave this appropria- 

 tion to the State Forester for use with the unemployed. After 

 giving much thought to this question, it seems to the secretary 

 that the function of the State should be to find out the facts 

 about the wet land in the State, make preliminary surveys and 

 maps, and have this information available for all, leaving the 

 actual work of drainage to private capital, as has been outlined 

 before. 



The secretary has, in company with a representative of the 

 United States Department of Agriculture and the engineer of 

 the Department of Health, made quite a study of the areas of 

 wet land in the eastern part of the State, and has taken 

 soundings in many of these places. These rather rough surveys 

 show in most cases that the lands are very valuable, but the 

 most important results that these studies show is that in order 

 to be successful in agricultural development certain areas must 

 be more carefully examined; also that certain areas would un- 

 doubtedly be absolute failures unless handled in a very careful 

 way. The net results of our work show that we need some 

 trained person to go over the whole situation in the State 

 thoroughly, and make a report on what should be done. To 

 this end, besides passing the amended drainage bill, we should 

 have an appropriation to carry on this work. There is every 

 assurance at this time that if the State will show an interest in 

 this matter, the United States Department of Agriculture will 

 co-operate with us to the extent of furnishing an expert to do 

 the preliminary work. The work of determining and mapping 

 the forest lands of the State is now being done by the Forester's 

 Department, and there certainly is no good reason why the 



