3 
probably exceeds 200,000 acres, the money value of their best state will amount 
to at least $40,000,000. The cost of reclaiming these lands and reducing them 
to cultivation should not exceed the fifth of this sum. 
In European countries salt marshes are regarded as the most fertile 
of lands. Large areas in Holland, Denmark, Germany, and Belgium 
have been cultivated for many years. In England the Fens to the 
extent of probably more than 1,000,000 acres have been diked and 
ditched and are now in a ‘state of matchless fertility.’’ 
The reclamation of tidal lands to be successful at a minimum expense 
should be managed by a man of experience in such matters. The ques- 
tion of how to build dikes, the cheapest and most efficient method of 
drainage to be employed, and the subsequent management of the soil 
to bring it into a state of fertility at the earliest possible moment, are 
all problems which require experience and judgment if the work is to 
be a success. Unfortunately, in America there are no trained agricul- 
tural engineers, nor is there an institution of learning which claims to 
train expert agricultural engineers. The best person, then, to plan and 
manage the reclamation is a civil engineer who has had experience in 
some related work. Men of experience have a habit of charging well 
for their services, but the money spent in fees to the right man is well 
invested. Diking and ditching done by inexperienced or careless per- 
sons will require more in repairs each year than would have been neces- 
sary to insure proper supervision in the first instance. 
Shaler (Loc. cit., p. 377) very aptly says: 
Where efforts have been made to exclude the sea and actually till the land 
they have sometimes been unsuccessful, owing to the failure of those who car- 
ried on the trial to see the true condition of the work. It is very much to be 
regretted that these experiments are not directed by some one trained in the 
work as it is effected on the northern shores of Europe, who could have brought 
to the task the accumulated experience of centuries; if this had been done it is 
tolerably certain that the process of turning ener American marshes to agricul- 
ture would now be well advanced. 
RECLAMATION OF TIDAL MARSHES. 
The first step in the reclamation of tidal marshes is the exclusion of 
the sea. Ordinarily the marshes are covered by sea water only at high 
tide—some of them at every high tide and others only at the highest or 
spring tides. Salt water is harmful to most all plants and its 
presence in the soil will effectively prevent the growth of ordinary farm 
crops. To exclude the sea a dike or embankment must be built at least 
2 feet higher than the highest tide. The method of building such dikes 
must, of course, depend upon the locality, the exposure to wave action, 
and the kind of dike-building material at hand. The material in most 
common use is the sod and soil from the marsh itself. It is cut from the 
swamp just inside of the position to be occupied by the dike and the exca- 
