260 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



large and constantly increasing population which they contain. Its peculiar 

 fitness for the production of such articles, and close proximity to market, 

 where almost unlimited quantities of them could be disposed of, has led to 

 several ineffectual attempts to reclaim portions of the tract ; but the plans 

 proposed for the purpose were imperfect, and on that account, or from want 

 of pecuniary means, or practical skill, none of them appear to have been 

 entirely completed, though several dilapidated sluices and small half-filled 

 water courses remain as evidences of former misdirected labor. 



These failures, although natural results of the plans pursued, are not o 

 such character as to render the success of the enterprise doubtful, if a 

 proper plan be adopted, and the work carried on with the requisite energy, 

 intelligence and engineering skill. 



In England and in Holland, tracts vastly more extensive than the one 

 under consideration, and presenting much more formidable engineering 

 difficulties, have been reclaimed, and rendered not only productive and 

 useful, but beautiful. 



On the eastern coast of England, in Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire, 

 upwards of 125,000 acres of fen lands, similar in many respects to the 

 Hackensack meadows, are embanked, and the whole drained by seventeen 

 steam engines, of the aggregate power of 870 horses, the water being lifted 

 from three and a half to six or seven feet. One of the commercial efi"ects 

 of the drainage works there was to raise the price of land, affected by them, 

 from £10 per acre to £50, £60, and even £70. In July, 1857, Mr. Henry 

 F. French, the author of an excellent w<jrk upon " Farm Draining," lately 

 published in New York, visited the Lincolnshire fens, in company with 

 some friends, and found wheat growing upon some of the drained lands, 

 which they estimated would yield fifty-six bushels per acre. 



A recent, and probably the largest drainage work ever undertaken, was 

 reclaiming the bed of Haarlem lake, in Holland. The lake itself covered 

 44,727 acres, (about seventy square miles,) and received the drainage, or 

 surplus water, from 173,128 acres of surrounding land — the whole extent 

 of which is now artificially drained by machinery ; and some portions of the 

 ancient bed of the lake are twenty-six feet below the level of high spring 

 tides. The cost of lands outside of the lake, required for embankments 

 and other purposes, was £58,880 sterling, or nearly $300,000, and the 

 quantity of land actually gained for cultivation is said to be about 56,000 

 acres. When the drainage was completed the land was sold, and produced 

 £16, 2s, 8d per acre, (about $80,) this price defraying the whole cost of 

 the work, and leaving to the government a small amount of profit. The 

 land is described as magnificent. 



These examples are sufficient to show, not only that the drainage of 

 Hackensack meadows is practicable, but that the work, if properly executed, 

 will almost certainly be productive of beneficial results to the proprietors 

 of the lands improved, and to the community at large — an unhealthy, un- 

 sightly, and almost totally useless tract will, by draining and cultivating, 

 be made useful, beautiful and healthful. 



