AND PROTECTION OF AGRICULTURAL LAND. 33 



higher level finding outlets within the embankment, and 

 thus interfering with the thorough drainage of the reclaimed 

 land, an inconvenience which is not so likely to occur in such 

 enclosures as are made in front of low lying tracts of country. 



The time that must elapse before such enclosures may be 

 expected to become ready for the exclusion of the tidal waters 

 must, as we have seen, vary with the situation, the rate of 

 accretion depending on the amount of suspended matter in 

 the water and other circumstances, and even after the exclusion 

 of the tide, a considerable period elapses before the land is 

 ready for tillage. Many extensive tracts of " salt marshes " are 

 never enclosed, and although covered to a depth varying from 

 a few inches to a foot during high tides, they afford excellent 

 pasture. But if the land is to be cropped, the water must, 

 as already noticed, be wholly excluded. 



The treatment of reclaimed marsh or slob lands in order to 

 fit them for the purpose contemplated by their enclosure, belongs 

 specially to agriculture, and not to engineering, and I am unable 

 to offer any opinion which could be of any value on that subject. 

 But, I think, it would be unpardonable were I to omit all 

 reference to this important matter, especially as it has been 

 very fully, and I should think judiciously, treated by the late 

 Mr John Wiggins, F.G.S., in his treatise on " Embanking Lands 

 from the Sea." I therefore offer no apology for giving the follow- 

 ing extracts from Mr Wiggins' book : 



" The various modes by which embanked lands may be brought 

 into a state of cultivation depend chiefly on the nature of 

 the soil. We are therefore now to contemplate an intake 

 securely embanked, with sluices of sufficient capacity to take 



