On Salt Marsh. 267 



is formed; and it is presumed that twenty-four feet 

 would be the mean depth required in high marshes on 

 the Delaware. The cost of the well at the Pea Patch, 

 was, per contract, forty-five dollars per foot, including 

 every expense ; but it is supposed that the work might 

 now be done for half that sum: — a thousand dollars 

 would be well spent in obtaining fresh water in a large 

 body of meadow, remote from the fast land. 



Having determined to bank and reclaim a large tract 

 of marsh, for that is still the hypothesis, let us inquire 

 what is to be done at first, and in progress ? The first 

 step is to ascertain the quantity owned by others, in or- 

 der that if the state laws do not compel every owner to 

 pay the expense according to his quantity of marsh, the 

 legislature may be applied to for a special act ; by ne- 

 glecting this, some of the owners receiving benefit from 

 the enclosure, will probably refuse to pay their quota of 

 expenditure : next, let contracts be made for banking and 

 ditching by the rod (not by the day) under the superin- 

 tendence of a person appointed to see that the packing 

 be properly done, and the ditches cut as wide an4 deep 

 as the agreement specifies. The banks should be thrown 

 from a single ditch, inside of the site of such bank, un- 

 less where it is necessary to make one so large that the 

 men cannot throw the mud from the inside of the ditch 

 to the outside of the bank, and, in this case, if the mud 

 can be carried for a reasonable price, it is better to have 

 it done, than to have two ditches ; one ditch is preferable, 

 because the bank is not so apt to spread and fall into one, as 

 if there were two ; nor has it so great a tendency to sink, 

 or spoil its shape, as it would have by crushing its foot- 

 ing into two ditches ; it will be more free from musk 



