Proceedings of Eighth Annual Meeting 125 



President Rider: The next topic upon the program is "The 

 Up-To-Date Salt Marsh Ditcher," twenty minutes, by Fred A. 

 Reiley, Superintendent of the Atlantic County Mosquito Commission. 



Fred A. Reiley : During the late war the force of laborers em- 

 ployed for ditching in the Atlantic County meadows was badly 

 crippled by the draft and by the lure of war work paying large wages. 

 As the able bodied men left, their places were filled by boys, and 

 men too old to seek war time jobs. 



It was natural to suppose that this type of labor could not turn 

 out the work with the speed of those better fitted for heavy work, 

 and it was especially noted in the footage of the machines that were 

 used to cut 10x30 inch ditches. When prodded by their foreman 

 the complaint was that the cable was too heavy for two, and it was 

 impossible to handle the plow with four men as had been done in the 

 past. The cry was for five and even six men to each machine. 

 At the wages paid this was out of the question. 



You are no doubt familiar with the plow then in use, — The Eaton 

 plow. Those who have seen it work will recall that when the ditch 

 has been cut to as close to the outlet as the power plant would permit, 

 in order to get it out of the ditch, it was necessary to, first with 

 a spade and hook dig out all of the cut sod in the plow that was 

 possible to reach and then lift the plow bodily from the ditch and 

 turn it on its side. This operation averaged 12^ minutes and in 

 fact took so long that it was cheaper to cut the balance of the ditch 

 by hand spade, than it was to start the plow again at the outlet and 

 complete the cut by machine. It was this lifting of the plow that 

 was too much for the old men and boys. 



It was plainly evident that a new type of plow was the only 

 solution, one that if possible could be handled entirely by the power 

 plant, not only to move it to any desired position but to take it from 

 a completed ditch with a maximum of three men and in a very much 

 shorter time than was necessary with the old plow. 



It seemed that with six or seven years of experience on the salt 

 marsh and with a salt marsh plow that it would have been a simple 

 matter to improve on this machine. So the writer thought, — and 

 it was only after several weeks in the cellar with a piece of tin, 

 a pair of tin shears and some solder that he decided it was not so 

 simple. However, the time was not entirely wasted as the germ of 

 an idea was developed for what was expected to be quite an improve- 

 ment in salt marsh ditchers. This, of course was on paper, but 

 looked good enough to try. 



