Port Tobacco times, and Charles County advertiser. (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1845-1898, 1881-07-01
Volume XXXVIIT.---No. 4.

'4StAAIO AAAALA ILL 1NOl
/, after the well had been dug and good
: water obtained, became so much i'm
:, proved in health that instead ofreceiv-
4 ing from many farmers one, two or
: three hundred dollars u year, he
! scarcely got from his former patients
: as many shillings. Thus it appears
5 that when a country is subiec to NAL
aria it may be completely gotte n rid ofor
; least its mischievous effects materially
} diminished. And this is
not mere theoretical
assertion, for the advantages Of such
J; measures have been proved in the
most satisfactory manner by the ex-
perience of marshy and fenny districts
i in England and Holland. Before they
were properly drained strangers hard
ly ever ventured to visit them from
the certainty of being subjected to the
ague.
Three hundred years ago all of Hol-
land west of Amsterdam and north of
Rotterdam was a series of lakes and
swamps, divided by narrow stretches
of drained land. To-day in that
whole area there is only sufficient
water left for interior navigation. The
Beemaster lake of $4,000 acres was
drained to depth of nearly 30 feet,
and it has ever since remained one of
the most fertile and healthy districts
Of the earth. Thirty years ago Haar-
lem lake, covering A 900 acres was
brought to the same condition, and it
is in contemplation to add to the dry
land of the Kingdom 100000 acres now
covered by the waters of the Zulder
Zee. The reclaiming of these districts
offered difficulties with which those Of
the swamp lands of Maryland can bear
no comparison. In Holland, where
the reclsmations during this whole
century have averaged about 1000
acres year, the motive for undertake
ing these works has been almost solely
to secure land for agricultural use;
the motive here, where it is necessary
to reclaim only comparatively small
area, would be principally for improv-
ing the health Of the State, compared
with which an agricultural use is
insignificant.
THE ROMAN MALARIA.
In ancient times the Campagne of
Rome was unsurpassed in fertility Of
soil and salubrity of climate, but now
it is dreary solitude, stretching
about twenty miles in one direction
to the base of the hills by which it is
surrounded. To the west wild, sui
led fiat extended to the sea. A pro-
fusion of bushy thickets and few
solitary trees are scattered over the
broken surface of this uninclosed and
houseless plain. Over ttS.wild waste
no rural dwellings ncattered
hamelets, nor fields. Is, such
as usually mark to a
populous city, arg 1IQ
is ruin fallen n
greatness, gra
abandoned
years alone meO a Of
man appears, e Flonely
tomb which tells tn bee was
there. Rome stands i'm Zderness
as in the world, surrounded by desert
of her own creation, desert which
accorded but too well with her former
greatness and her present decay. 1t
may, perhaps, be soothing to the con-
temptation of the traveller or the fancy
of the poet to see the once beautiful
"Campagna di Roma abandoned to
the wild luxuriance Of nature, and
covered only with the defaced tombs
of her tyrants and the scarce visible
remains of the villas of her Senators;
but it is melancholy to behold this
immense tract of fertile land, in the
immediate vicinity of one of the great
est cities in the world, pestilent with
disease and death, and to know that,
likea y devouring grave, it annually
engulphs all of human kind that toll
upon its surface. The season of ma
laria in the Campagne is during the
summer. From the fall of the au-
tumn rains in October until the re-
turn of the summer heats the atmos-
phere is perfectly salubrious. Thus
this plague spot seems to be the
alternate region of life and death.
Who can contemplate the history of
the Campagna, once the paradise Of
the metropolis of the world, but now
"a dreary tract of desolation, without
feeling the utmost anxiety concerning
the fast increasing mortality from
malarious diseases in our own midst?
Even now many of the inhabitants of
this favored land die under the deadly
attacks of malaria, whereas by proper
means that disease might be totally
extirpated, and large districts now
unproductive would become the gran
aries of Maryland. What credit would
not the Legislature of the State obtain
by promoting so greatan improvement?
The State has expended in principal
and compounded interest upwards of
$40,O0O,OO0 in a canal to develop the
resources of Western Maryland; why
should she not contribute literally to
exempt from disease and bring into
state of productive cultivation extern
sive districts of Southern MARYLAND
and the Eastern Shore? 1t must be
prime object with every true phil
anthropist, anxious TO promote the in
terests Of his fellow-men, that some
experiments on great scale should
be set on foot to ascertain the effects
of the measures proposed; for if this
widespred evil is suffered progressively
to increase, the time is not far distant
when some of the most fertile counties
in the State will be reduced to the
condition of the Roman Campagna.
The plan for preventing such calam-
ity is yet an unsolved problem, but it
would not be premature to take the