Since 1870 this work has been prosecuted with energy, one company alone having a nominal capital of $12,000,000, and owning, in 1872, 120,000 acres of land in the delta of the Sacra mento and San Joaquin rivers, and embracing we believe, both salt water and fresh water tide land. In the West there are large areas of what are known as low prairie, not marshes, but lands suffering from excess of water in the spring and interspersed through with ponds seldom dry. In Iroquois county, R1., vast areas have been reclaimed by a careful system of drainage, ren dering them among the most valuable lands in the State. In Iowa there are large tracts of the same nature requiring comparatively little expense to fit them for the plow, also inany river bottoms of large extent, subject to overflow in floods occur ring both in spring and summer. A good begin ning has also been made in that State in the reclamation of these lands by surface drainage. and by embankments. In the West there has been so much unoccupied land requiring no drainage, that until within a few years, but little attention has been paid to systematic drainage. It is now found that these lands are the richest in the several States, and that they may be re claimed at a comparatively light cost. Hence, capital and energy have sought these claanncls of industry, and have acquired large tracts worth many millions of dollars in the aggregate, and adding a large yearly surplus of agricultural pro ducts for export, or for consumption at home, through being fed to fattening cattle and swine. There is another class of soils, the richest in the world, lying along the great rivers of the Missis sippi valley, especially those vast areas near the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, subject to over flow in great freshets, because lying below the high water line, that if protected at all must be so by expensive systems of levees, requiring large outlays of capital. This system has been in
operation in the South many years, and yet only imperfectly accomplished, since with streams carrying a large amount of sediment, the natural consequence of diking the banks, is to cause a deposit of sediment at the bottom of the stream, so that the bed of the river may come to be ultimately higher than the land itself. This is found to be the case in some of the streams of Europe, that have been diked for many centu ries. The same effect seems to be going on in the lower Mississippi, the result being that the levee imust be raised constantly higher and higher. Natural reasoning will show that there is a limit beyond which human art may not strive, and already, a number of schemes have been advo cated to take the pressure from the banks. The recurrence of destructive inundations like those in the last decade, (1876 and 1881), in the upper Mississippi, and in 1881 along the Missouri as well, would seem to point to the fact that some means must be taken to ease the pressure of water, in very high floods, by straightening the channel, and causing a freer flow, with increased velocity, in connection with higher and more substantial embankments. The floods of Th81 would seem to teach this plainly. Another fact seems plain. The lands lying along the Missis sippi are of sufficient value to bear a large outlay in perfecting the embankments. For whatever the cost, it must be done thoroughly. The dam age by the flood of 1881 would undoubtedly cover the entire cost of the system of embank ments or levees, or at least the recurrence of another such a one certainly would. It would seem to be a wise course that such disasters to property be prevented, if possible, in future.