FARMERS' REGISTER— SHIRLEY SWAMP. 



131 



rect estimate can be made,) should be deducted 

 from the foregoing balance of $5600, to show the 

 clear profit. 



I ought here to remark that Ihavebeen obliged 

 to add a foot to the height of the dike every year 

 since it was reclaimed, and the year it was so 

 wrecked, I had to add two feet, and yet the dike is 

 now only one loot higher than it was first made — 

 that is to say seven feet, so great is the settling 

 of the dike. The general surface of the land since 

 reclaimed has sunk about eighteen inches. 



I have not been as much annoyed by rauskrats 

 as I expected, from the circumstance, I suppose, of 

 our constant attention to the dike, and the constant 

 working of the hands during summer, in the crop, 

 and winter on the dike, so that the muskrats are 

 scared off. A man goes all around the dike every 

 day to see whether there are any muskrat holes, 

 and marks them wherever he finds them ; and 

 every now and then we select a low tide, and cut 

 them out, and stop them up cai"efully, which keeps 

 them suflicienlly under for all purposes. I think 

 the swamp mud is better for making a dike that is 

 liable to the waves of the river or creek, than 

 highland earth, as it is much more tenacious and 

 less apt to be washed by the waves : and when a 

 muskrat cuts through the swamp mud, it never 

 washes larger. I have known a hole which could 

 not be stopped out, for want of time and low tides, 

 remain the same size for months at a time, — so 

 soapy and tenacious is our swamp mud ; and but 

 for its settling, it would be the very best material 

 for dikes. \Vhen my dike was overflowed, if it 

 had been of highland earth, or sand, it would have 

 been all washed away — but the swamp mud stood 

 it like wax, and only broke in the weaker parts. 

 To future reclaimers of swamp lands I would ad- 

 vise the leaving a very wide margin of land be- 

 tween their dike and the river or creek, to furnish 

 mud to repair and raise these dikes with, as well 

 as to break the waves off; and never to dig a pit or 

 hole, nearer than thirty or forty feet, (the farther 

 the better) from the dike, as all pools or holes of 

 water near the dike attract muskrats. Also never 

 allow any earth or mud to be taken from the inside 

 of your dike, as that is ruinous — for if you have 

 any sink on the inside, the water will remain in it 

 frequently, and will attract the muskrats; for 

 wherever there is water, they cut a hole through 

 the dike to communicate with it. The greatest 

 security against them is to have your reclaimed 

 land free from water, on the inside at least — have 

 no ditches near the dike if it can be avoided ; but 

 if you are obliged to have ditches, let them run 

 perpendicular to your dike, and not parallel, so as 

 to present the least surface of water, and thus offer as 

 little inducement as possible to the muskrats to cut 

 through the dike. Build the dike of the mud or 

 earth from without, and take it as far off from the 

 dike as possible. With good planks and wheelbar- 

 rows, it is almost as easy to take the mud from 

 fifty, sixty, or one hundred feet, as nearer, and you 

 will save by it in the end. The further off you go 

 for your mud the better. 



HILL CARTER. 



[Note A.] 



The trunks to let off the rain water, or any 

 water which collects on the reclaimed land, are 

 made in the following manner : For a dike six- 

 teen feet at the base, take two pine planks, twen- 



ty six feet long, fourteen inches wide, and two 

 inches thick at least (three would be better,) for 

 the sides of the trunk: then with plank of the same 

 thickness, sawed into lengtlis of twenty-two inch- 

 es, nailed on the bottom and top of the side planks, 

 Avith close joints, make a trunk, leaving one end 

 open and the other closed. Then about four inch- 

 es from the closed end of the trunk, on the top, cut 

 a hole eighteen inches long, and twelve inches wide, 

 to let the water through. Place a valve or door on 

 the underside of the hole of the trunk, four inches 

 wider and four inches longer than the hole, which 

 will float up to tiie hole and close it, when the wa- 

 ter is liigher on the outside than the inside ; but 

 when the water is higher on the inside, it will sink 

 by the pressure of the water, and let it off from 

 the reclaimed land. The valve or door is kept 

 from getting out of the trunk by a perpendicular 

 pin, put through the top and bottom of the trunk, 

 and near enough to the hole to make the valve rise 

 just under it, and close it. The valve or door 

 should be made of two pieces of plank pinned to- 

 gether, one on top of the other, with the grain of 

 the wood of each crossing that of the other, to 

 keep the valve from splitting. 



Tiie trunk is then placed in a ditch cut through 

 the dike to receive it, about half a foot below low 

 water mark, to keep it always immersed in water, 

 (which keeps it from rotting,) with the valve end 

 on the inside of the dike, and the open end on the 

 outside of the dike. 



uxi/tiii^n^^/Si 



A.— The trunk. 



P. — Horizontal plan of the top of the trunk, 

 b. — Aperture for the descent of water, 

 cc. — Floating valve, which rises to the aperture b, 

 and excludes the flood tide. 



d. — The closed end of the trunk. 



e. — Upright pin, to secure the vaive in its place. 



[Note B.] 



It is much better, I think, not to grub up and 

 burn the stumps and roots, on first clearing swamp 

 laud, except in the list where you plant the corn, 

 for several reasons. In the first place, it reduces 

 the surface very much, which is very desirable 

 should not be done. In the second, the stumps and 

 roots keep a great deal of the ground from putting 

 up in grass and weeds, and save that much labor 

 in v/eeding ; and third, the stumps and roots rot 

 much sooner in sv/amp than in high land, and you 

 get rid of them soon enough without the endless 

 labor of grubbing them up. They will all disap- 

 pear in four or five years, where the land is culti- 

 vated every year; and the land will not require 

 bedding sooner than that, as it does not sink much 

 until the stumps and roots decay. 



M. C. 



