acity to carry the streams as
well. If the marsh is divided by an actual river, it may be best to embank
it in two separate tracts; losing the margins, that have been recommended,
outside of the dykes, and building the necessary additional length of
these, rather than to contend with a large body of water. But, frequently,
a very large marsh is traversed by a tortuous stream which occupies a
large area, and which, although the tidal water which it contains gives it
the appearance of a river, is only the outlet of an insignificant stream,
which might be carried along the edge of the upland in an ordinary
mill-race. In such case it is better to divert the stream and reclaim the
whole area.

When a stream is enclosed between dykes, its winding course should be made
straight in order that its water may be carried off as rapidly as
possible, and the land which it occupies by its deviations, made available
for cultivation. In the loose, silty soil of a salt marsh, the stream may
be made to do most of the work of making its new bed, by constructing
temporary "jetties," or other obstructions to its accustomed flow, which
shall cause its current to deposit silt in its old channel, and to cut a
new one out of the opposite bank. In some instances it may be well to make
an elevated canal, straight across the tract, by constructing banks high
enough to confine the stream and deliver it over the top of the dyke; in
others it may be more expedient to carry the stream over, or through, the
hill which bounds the marsh, and cause it to discharge through an
adjoining valley. Improvements of this magnitude, which often affect the
interest of many owners, or of persons interested in the navigation of the
old channel, or in mill privileges below the point at which the water
course is to be diverted, will generally require legislative interference.
But they not seldom promise immense advantages for a comparatively small
outlay.

The instance cited of the Hackensack Meadows, in New Jersey, is a case in
point. Its area is divided among many owners, and, while ninety-nine acres
in every hundred are given up to muskrats, mosquitoes, coarse rushes and
malaria, the other one acre may belong to the owner of an adjacent farm
who values the salt hay which it yields him, and the title to the whole is
vested in many individual proprietors, who could never be induced to unite
in an improvement for the common benefit. Then again, thanks to the tide
that