AND PROTECTION OF AGRICULTURAL LAND. 41 



take are the following : To freshen gradually ; to drain effectu- 

 ally ; to cultivate perfectly ; to crop moderately ; to look to 

 grazing ultimately ; and to lay down to grass carefully." 



Even, with all the difficulties that beset the subject, there can 

 be no doubt that the daily recurring sight of large tracts of banks 

 left high and dry by the receding tide, suggests the very natural 

 idea of easily excluding the sea and extending the land. It is 

 difficult, indeed, to suppose that any proprietor on the banks of a 

 tidal estuary can be indifferent to such a prospect of adding to 

 his fields, and hence attempts at such reclamation works on vary- 

 ing scales of magnitude are, we may say, almost universal. But 

 though the process may seem easy, and the object very tempting, 

 it is a great mistake to suppose that these estuarial tide-covered 

 banks can, in all cases, be converted into arable or even pasture 

 land at a cost commensurate with their future agricultural value, 

 or to assume that in order to increase the arable land of the 

 country, all we have to do is to steal it from the ocean. On the 

 contrary, as shewn by practical experience, the return for in- 

 vestment of capital on such improvements is always uncertain, 

 and has proved in many cases utterly insufficient. But in all 

 such questions the most reliable and valuable information is 

 that which is derived from practice, and I have therefore been 

 at some trouble to obtain authentic accounts of several reclama- 

 tions, most of which have been brought under my own notice in 

 connection with navigation works, and I offer no apology for laying 

 them at some length before the reader. These accounts refer, as 

 will be seen, to reclamations formed under very different circum- 

 stances as regards locality and construction, and being founded 

 on observations made by reliable independent authorities, who are 



