On Salt Marsh. 265 



Some marshes, where there is no sloping beach, are 

 washed at their edge, next the river or bay, by ordinary 

 tides, all the time of flood and ebb — no sand nor gravel to 

 defend them : in such a case, no bank erected near the 

 margin will stand long, but will, in a few years, be un- 

 dermined and cave in ; great pieces of sod are constant- 

 ly breaking off, carrying some mud along with them, and 

 this process never ceases, excepting at the turn of tide, 

 to make regular approaches towards the artificial bank : 

 nothing can justify enclosing such a marsh, unless the 

 owner can make safe calculations on the plan of going 

 far back into it for the site of his bank, and thus losing 

 several hundred yards in depth between it and the bay ; 

 and even then, he must look forward to a time when the 

 encroachment of the bay will compel him to abandon 

 his out-works : to prevent this, however, piers or old 

 hulks have been resorted to with success, but always 

 with great expense. The uncertainty of the effect of such 

 barriers is another objection, as they frequently increase 

 the evil they were placed to forfend. There are some 

 valuable tracts, fit for banking, in whose centre, or ex- 

 tremity next the fast land, are soft low places of consi- 

 derable extent: in order that the improvement of the 

 whole need not be retarded, till the tides should fill up 

 these low spots, which, from their remoteness from bays 

 or rivers, might never be, the owners could assist nature, 

 by digging ditches from such bays or rivers, through 

 which the muddy water would readily flow and spread 

 over those low places, which are commonly called " salt 

 ponds ;" three or four years would, by this method, effect 

 a great alteration : this cannot be done after the bank is 

 made, without inundating all the land enclosed. 



2T 



