34 ON THE RECLAMATION 



off the drainage down to 18 inches below the general level of 

 the surface of the intake. These are essential conditions on 

 which alone the work of cultivation can be commenced with any 

 hope of success, and these conditions being strictly fulfilled, we 

 now proceed to agricultural operations according to the nature of 

 the soil, which may be classed as clayey, sandy, and loamy, each of 

 which will require a somewhat different treatment in some 

 respects, though in other matters the treatment applies to all. 

 Thus, for instance, in the first agricultural operation, viz., that 

 of enabling the soil which has so lately been supersaturated with 

 salt water, with all its chemical combinations, to part with so 

 much of its saline and other particles as may be in excess for the 

 purpose of vegetation, or in other words, to freshen the soil 

 sufficiently for land plants to thrive upon it, the process will 

 be the same upon all these soils, and this process consists in 

 forming a series of surface drains by which the drainage waters 

 may run off, carrying with them such portion of the saline 

 and other particles as they may have been enabled to dissolve 

 and take up or absorb. 



" But such channels and drains are to be made, not only 

 with the view of freshening the soil, but also in such manner as 

 to answer the ulterior purposes of fences, and of drains to carry 

 off the surface waters. 



" The fences of an intake are usually marsh ditches or dykes* 

 of sufficient width and depth to prevent cattle attempting to 

 cross them, and an intake seldom admits of any other description 

 of fence. Such water fences and drains must, in the first 

 place, be drawn all round the intake, i.e., from the sluices by 



* Dyke in Scotland means a dry stone wall ; in England a ditch. 



