THE VALUE OF RECLAIMED LANDS. 53 



The writer has visited the marshes, has seen the excellent results of 

 the work accomplished, and has watched the active operation of 

 digging the ditches. It is possible to walk with dry feet over the 

 drained marshes, and the crop of hay the first year after ditching 

 doubles in quantity. 



A bit of work excellent in its results and very economical in its 

 cost, in the way of the drainage of an upland marsh, is described by 

 Doctor Smith in his report for 1908. A new normal school was 

 about to be constructed on Montclair Heights, and there were swampy 

 areas near by which a committee of the state board of education con- 

 sidered to be dangerous as mosquito-breeding places. Doctor Smith 

 caused an inspection to be made early in April, and found that 

 there was a danger point in which not only the ordinary pool mos- 

 quitoes but malarial mosquitoes could develop. At a cost of $250, 

 3,000 feet of ditching was placed or improved, and all the surface 

 water was drained to a culvert through a railroad embankment. 

 The heavy rains of May gave excellent opportunity for testing 

 the effectiveness of the work, and no mosquito breeding was found 

 there throughout the season. 



THE VALUE OF RECLAIMED LANDS. 

 GENERAL RECLAMATION WORK. 



The general value of lands reclaimed from swamps is obvious. 

 Practically all of Holland has been reclaimed from the sea. Large 

 areas of the most valuable farming land in the world have been re- 

 claimed from nonproductive swamps. To the nonproductiveness of 

 swamp land must be added the great danger that exists in its contin- 

 uance through the invariable presence of disease-bearing mosquitoes. 

 The drainage of swamps not only destroys unlimited breeding places 

 of mosquitoes, but vastly increases the value of the land for farming 

 purposes and for other utilitarian uses. Either reason amply pays for 

 the operation. The late Prof. N. S. Shaler, in his report to the North 

 Shore Improvement Association, showed that fields gained by marsh 

 drainage possess the greatest fertility and their endurance to cropping 

 without manuring exceeds that of any other agricultural land except 

 possibly arid regions which are irrigated. The range of crops is great 

 and includes all ordinary farm and garden crops except in some 

 places Indian corn. Reclaimed swamp lands are especially adapted 

 for truck farming, because it is easy to maintain the level o( under- 

 ground water where the roots of the plants can reach it. Professor 

 Shaler shows that the larger part of the best irrigable Land in Holland, 

 and much of that in Belgium, northern Germany, and eastern England 

 has been gained from what was originally tidal fields. He estimates 

 not less than 10,000 square miles in those countries to have been 

 redeemed in this way. 



