74 POSSIBLE DEVELOPMENTS 



" reclamation " is better reserved for such cases as 

 involve a preliminary expenditure of capital on a scale 

 comparable with or greater than the initial value of the 

 land, beginning with certain defined operations which 

 are apart from the ordinary routine of cultivation. 

 Reclamation deals with land, the initial value of which 

 lies between £i and perhaps £j per acre as an upper 

 limit, and the outlay before the land can be let for 

 ordinary farming may be as high as £y an acre, irre- 

 spective of buildings and roads. 



In Great Britain opportunities for reclamation on a 

 reasonably large scale are to be found as follows : 



(i ) Salt marsh and slob lands under water at high tide. 

 While no great area of this debatable ground exists, 

 payable areas ripe for reclamation are to be found in 

 many of the estuaries of our rivers, particularly on the 

 East Coast. Round the Wash the process has always 

 been going on, and could now be resumed with advan- 

 tage ; other areas have been examined in the Dee 

 Estuary, the Firth of Forth, Cromarty, etc. The 

 process is well understood ; it consists in throwing up 

 a wall round the area, embanking any streams and pro- 

 viding them with outlets, cutting drainage channels and 

 providing them with sluices to discharge at low water 

 or by means of a pumping station. In the Eastern 

 Counties experience has shown that it is rarely wise to 

 embank land that has not already been so far built up 

 by natural actions as to have acquired a green cover- 

 ing of vegetation. The embankment is comparatively 

 costly in labour and varies with the size and shape of 

 the area ; but the land gained is nearly always of high 

 quality, worth from £30 to £50 an acre. Perhaps the 

 chief obstacle to the prosecution of such work is the 



