The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1910-09-08
RECLANIING SWAMP LANDS.
Vast Opportunities for Profit in the
South.

The Washington Post, referring to
the trend of immigration to the
South. says:
If the swamp lands OF the South
were drained, millions Of Northern
ers would rush there to possess them.
Is the Washington Post keeping
track Of the wonderful work now un-
Ger way in the reclamation Of the
swamp, or overlowed lands of the
South? asked the Manufacturers
Record. Does it know that the larg-
est contract ever made in this country
for the reclamation of such lands has
been given by the State of Florida to
one of the strongest contracting COM
panies in the country for the recla-
nation of the Everglade region, or
with view to redeeming from waste
for cultivation 100000 acres. near
" equal to the land area of Mary
land? Does the Post know that many
large contractors from the West, as
we'll as local contractors, are carrying
out vast undertakings for reclamation
work in Louisiana, which, in the ag-
gregate amount of work under way,
is leading the country, next to the
great undertaking in Florida, and
that in Arkansas, in Mississippi, in
Texas and in North Carolina great re-
clamation enterprises are being
pushed?
The fact is, one of the most re-
markable features of Southern ma
terial development during the last
decade is the work now under way in
the reclamation of wet lands. These
lands. as already demonstrated by the
splendid work done in Louisiana, are
among the richest in the world. A
report of an agricultural chemist in
Ohio shows that in some of the wet
lands in Louisiana now being re-
claimed there is enough nitrogen in
the first eight inches OF soil to pro-
duce a thousand corn crops of fifty
bushels per acre. In other words the
nitrogen in the soil is equal to the
exhaustion produced by the growing
crops for a thousand years.
Nlarvelously rich as are these lands,
it should be remembered that the 80,
O00,0 900 acres or more Of reclaimable
wet land in different parts OF the
South are as yet a practically un-
utilized asset, worth billions of dol
lars to this section and to the coun-
try. Their development is already
beginning to create desire of North
ern and Western people to possess
them. The movement, although in
it's infancy, IS commanding wide at
tention. The Washington Post is
correct in it's statement that the
drainage of these lands will ultimate
ly bring millions of Northerners to
this section, but these Northerners
and Westerners need not wait for the
drainage of all the fifty million acres
available. If they want to share in
the profit to be made, they must
share in the development necessary.
Far-seeing men, like the pioneers who
got rich by the opening up of Ohio
and Indiana and Illinois and Michi-
gan, have in the South an opportu-
nifty such as the West never possessed.
The Southern man, too, may we'll be-
gin to recognize the possibilities in
his own country; not only possibili-
ties in the things which are all
around him in soil and minerals and
timbers, but in the utilization of these
wet lands While welcoming others
to this work, it should not be left
wholly to the people of the North
and West, who will get rich thereby.
Thousands of Southern men should
share in the vast increment which
is to come from the development of
these lands. 1t is safe to say that
the fifty millions acres of such lands,
not worth to-day on an average of
$40 an acre. or less, say, than $780,
100000, will when reclaimed be east
ly worth s5,OOO,OOO,OO0. Who will
make the profit between s500,00O,-
900 and 100000? The prize
is an alluring one.