MARSH-LANDS FOR AGRICULTURE 333 
and in large metal tanks. The tanks were so made that upon reaching the 
terminus they were taken up by machinery, carried out by an overhead trolley 
line, and by machinery dumped at a given spot. In this way some hundreds 
of acres of salt marsh were covered with a 12-foot layer of the contents of the 
ash barrels of Brooklyn. The layer was packed down by water and contained so 
much organic matter that almost immediately grass and sun flowers began to 
grow. At the end of the second year enough soil had formed so that Italians had 
begun to plant cabbages and other vegetables. 
“The Government is taking up the subject of reclamation of swamp lands 
through its Reclamation Service, and extensive surveys are being made by the 
United States Geological Survey. Under the United States Department of 
Agriculture appropriations have been made for some years to enable the Secre- 
tary of Agriculture to investigate and report upon the drainage of swamps and 
other wet lands and to prepare plans for the removal of surplus waters by 
drainage. 
“A number of interesting and important publications have already been 
issued by the United States Department of Agriculture, two of which are of 
general interest, namely, Circular No. 74, Office of Experiment Stations, Ex- 
cavating Machinery Used for Digging Ditches and Building Levees, by J. O. 
Wright (pp. 40, figs. 16) ; and Circular No. 6, Office of Experiment Stations, 
The Swamp and Overflowed Lands of the United States, by J. O. Wright (pp. 
23, pl.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 owner- 
ship, present value, cost of reclamation, and probable value when reclaimed, 
and discusses the state laws relating to drainage. It is shown in the latter 
circular that there are in the United States 119,972 square miles of swamp lands, 
an area which, collected together, would be as large as England, Ireland, Scot- 
land 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 Experiment 
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 cultivation by the building of simple engineering 
structures. It is a noticeable 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. 
