56 PKEVENTIVE AND REMEDIAL WORK AGAINST MOSQUITOES. 



Ditches and Building Levees, by J. O. Wright (pp. 40, figs. 16); and 

 Circular No. 76, Office of Experiment Stations, The Swamp and Over- 

 flowed Lands of the United States, by J. O. Wright (pp. 23, pi. 1). 

 The first of these publications described the use and construction of 

 different classes of dredges, including dipper, clam-shell, rotary, roller, 

 scraper, elevator, and hydraulic dredges, and drag boats; first cost 

 and cost of operation of dredges; machines for building levees; 

 machine for tile ditching. The second gives an estimate of the area 

 of swamp lands in the different States, its ownership, present value, 

 cost of reclamation, and probable value when reclaimed, and dis- 

 cusses the state laws relating to drainage. It is shown in the lat- 

 ter circular that there are in the United States 119,972 square miles 

 of swamp lands, an area which, collected together, wjould be as large 

 as England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales together, or larger than the 

 six New England States, New York, and the northern half of New 

 Jersey. It would make a strip 133 miles wide reaching from New 

 York to Chicago. Not all of this swamp land, however, is suited 

 for agriculture, but from the data collected by the Office of Experi- 

 ment Stations of the United States Department of Agriculture, it 

 seems certain that in the eastern portion of the United States there 

 are 77,000,000 acres that can be reclaimed and made fit for cultiva- 

 tion by the building of simple engineering structures. It is a notice- 

 able and significant fact that 95 per cent of this entire area is held 

 in private ownership. The following paragraphs taken from this 

 Circular No. 76 express the desirability of such drainage from the 

 monetary point of view in very forcible terms : 



There is no question as to the fertility of swamp or overflowed land, and when it is 

 protected by embankments to keep out the overflow and is relieved of the excess of 

 water by proper drainage its productiveness is unexcelled. In nearly every one of 

 the States large areas of similar lands have been reclaimed by draining and embanking 

 and have proven to be the most productive farm lands in the districts in which they 

 are located. Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, and southern Louisiana have taken the lead in 

 work of this kind, and in no other part of the country do we find more profitable or 

 higher-priced farms than in those States. Along the Atlantic coast sufficient work 

 has been done to indicate that the vast extent of salt marsh reaching from Maine to 

 Florida can by proper methods be won to agriculture, and when reclaimed the soils 

 are especially adapted to market gardening. 



To ascertain why these lands have been allowed to remain so long in their present 

 state we must look to some cause other than their lack of fertility, as this has been 

 fully established by chemical analyses of the soil and by hundreds of productive 

 farms that have been made from such lands. 



In the early settlement of our country the farms were located on what were con- 

 sidered the most desirable tracts, determined by accessibility, natural water supply, 

 and the fertility of the soil. As civilization extended westward the home seeker 

 selected the rolling prairie that needed little or no drainage, so that the swamps and 

 overflowed lands were passed by, and only recently has an imperative demand arisen 

 for their reclamation. The desirable farming land is practically all occupied or held 

 for speculation, and to meet the needs of our steadily increasing population it is neces- 



