69 



shortly after 170O' this work begun near Salem. It continued 

 for about 150 years, and in the aggregate 34,300 acres had been 

 embanked and brought under cultivation. Much of this had 

 been profitable and heavy and valuable crops of all kinds had 

 been raised on these embanked lands. Through the opening of 

 the great West, agriculture in the East became depressed during 

 the last quarter of the nineteenth century. 



PUMPING REASONABLE AND SIMPLE. 



Furthermore, there had been material shrinkage in some of 

 these embanked lands, so that they could not be drained by the 

 action of tide sluices alone, and the ow^ners did not follow up 

 their improvements by pumping. At the present time the pump- 

 ing problem is very simple, owing to the introduction of im- 

 proved machinery, and the cost is not great. The operating cost 

 of removing all of the drainage in an average year would not 

 exceed one dollar per acre; consequently at the present time 

 it is a great mistake not to follow up the drainage with pumping 

 when that course becomes necessary. 



SHRINKAGE — ITS CAUSE. 



This matter of shrinkage to which I have referred has been 

 questioned, but it admits of no question, as there is abundant 

 experience on this point. Engineer's levels, taken with great 

 care, show that the lands in Hudson County embanked by the 

 New Jersey Land Reclamation Co. many years ago had shrunk 

 and subsided by 1896 to the extent of nearly three feet in places. 

 It does not take place, however, in marsh lands free from peaty 

 matter to any such extent. The principal cause of it is due 

 to the fact that in their wet condition the decay of woody fibre 

 and other vegetable matter is largely suspended. When the 

 marsh is dry and air introduced into the soil, the oxygen attacks 

 these substances and they decay. Fortunately, as a rule, the 

 subsidence is much less along the foreshore next to the larger 

 streams where the banks are located, than it is back in the marsh 

 or toward the upland. 



