ON THE RECLAMATION OF AGRICULTURAL LAND. 23 



tide, and are thus, according to their level, rendered more or 

 less easily convertible into pasture or corn-growing land. 



It is not for the agriculturists of the British Isles alone that 

 the subject of reclamation has an interest. Even in the United 

 States of America, with all its vast tracts of unoccupied land, 

 attention is now being directed to gaining land on the margins 

 of the bays and estuaries on the eastern shores of the country ; 

 and the National Society of Paris have recently invited communi- 

 cations to be made to them during the year 1874, "on the 

 embankment and reclamation of land from the sea." Still more 

 recentty, Mr Eintoul, of Kingston, in East Lothian, has sug- 

 gested that our Government might profitably make use of the 

 Crown right to the foreshores within high-water mark by form- 

 ing sea embankments. That the subject is exciting much atten- 

 tion cannot therefore be doubted, and that reclamations have in 

 certain situations and under certain circumstances been success- 

 fully carried out has been fully established. But it would be 

 very erroneous to assume that every foreshore uncovered at 

 low water may profitably be converted into arable land ; and 

 as there is reason to believe that much misconception exists 

 on the subject, I have thought it might be useful to discuss 

 at some length our experience of the methods adopted in 

 forming reclamations, and the practical results which have 

 been obtained under different physical circumstances. 



The area reclaimed from the estuary of the Dee, which is 

 now fertile land, was originally pure sandbank covered by all 

 spring-tides, and utterly unavailable for any useful agricultural 

 purpose, and as it is a good example of such tidal reclamations, 

 it may be interesting to give a brief outline of what has there 



