The Marietta journal. (Marietta, Ga.) 1918-1944, 1919-07-11

In CLAYTON

D. Cunningham is most interesting
nd encouraging one. We clip it from
the Clayton County Gao News.
Read it.
General Washington, just after re-
firing from the presidency, wrote that
one of the most attractive features
of his new life was that he might
have opportunities to make improve
ments upon the earth in the capacity
of Virginia farmer. | think of the
phrase General Washington used very
often when he spoke' of making i'm
provements on the earth when cross
Camp Creek on my daily journeyings
and look at the verdant stretch of
fertile valley.
When / first saw Camp Greek it
was a foul, pestilential tag alder
swamp from Caters to the river,
breeding maisma and moccasins from
one end of it's loathsome length to
the other, and it crawled through our
lovely country like blotch, cancer,
weeping eczema on the fair face of
Clayton county, sore to the sight
and a stencil to the smell.
A wonderful transformation has
taken place. Camp Creek is no long
er wide stream and stagnant series
Of shallow pools, without banks and
running far and wide, but it is clear,
swift, running stream, confined by
high banks and running like noun
tain branch down to the river. In
the acres on each side, the tag alders,
swamp grass and sweet gums are gone
and the noble soil, redeemed from it's
former degradation is nurturing bread
and stretches of corn.
What an improvement wrought up
on the earth! If you have any doubts
about drainage, come and see!
One of our Riverdale citizens who
owns many acres on either side Of
this creek said that he would hardly
consider an offer of one thousand dol
lars an acre for this reclaimed land,
which, year ago, was worthless and
worse than worthless, for it was a
malaria breeder.
l hail the men who planned and
executed this splendid project as pa
triots in a very fine and true sense.
If man does good work who causes
two blades of grass to grow where
one grew before, how much more
praiseworthy is the man who causes
acres of black fertile land to abound,
where there was naught but bog and
marsh before.
Our Georgia swamp land is mar
velously fertile and we'll may it be
since the top soil of the hills has been
washed down on them. AS it is now
in so many parts of Georgia, these
tag alder syamps are good for moth
ing, not even holding the earth to-
gether sufficiently, but they are liabili-
ties to any community. In them are
bred countless numbers of anopheles
mosquitoes, who are the one guilty
agents in spreading malaria. Malaria
and tag alder swamp are as insep-
arabic as dead mule and maggots.
Malaria has never been driven from
community where swamps were left
undrained.
Often it is said, we have no ma
laria in Clayton county. "Tell that
to the marines" We do have malaria,
though we ought not to have it.
l venture this assertion and am
ready for challenge to prove it.
There is no inhabited section, south
of the Blue Ridge mountains, where
there is swamp of three miles long,
in which malaria may not be found,
and will leave the proof to the bac-
teriologist of the State Board of
Health. / have known malaria under
the comb of the Blue Ridge, in Mich
igan and Ohio. have found it here,
though never very far from swamp.
1t is fine and splendid thing to drain
these swamps.
Again, l hail these drainage agents
as first class patriots, doing a good
work on the earth, building better
than they knew, for these reclaimed
acres are an enduring monument to