The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1920-10-05
RETAINING SWAMP LAND.

REOLAlMlIN(I SW AN1T- LAM.
Some of the land owners of the neigh
boring county of Sumter are preparing to
embark upon an enterprise which will be
of almost untold value to them and the
county-the reclamation by drainage of
more than thirty-three thousand acres of
swamp and overflow lands, which, expert
engineers say, can be done at relatively
low cost and converted into farms of high
prciuctiveness. The drainage of similar
lands in middle and north Georgia has been
accomplished with expenditures ranging
from fifteen to thirty dollars an acre. For
merly well nigh worthless for practical
purposes, these tracts are now valued at
one hundred to five hundred dollars an
acre; and the attendant gains to public
health and common prosperity are no less
marked than those to the individual prop
erty owners.
According to the Atlanta Journal the
latest published records of the geological
survey shows that forty OR more drainage
districts have been formed in this state,
''their average extent running from four
teen hundred to nearly twenty-five thous-
and acres. In all these undertakings thus
far completed the results have been album
dainty satisfying Many of the goodliest
farms in America now lift their harvests
of gold from land which few years or a
few seasons ago was an untillable and Writ
ually valueless bog. The thousands OF
dollars spent in retaining them will be as
nothing beside the millions which they will
produce in foodstuffs or cotton through the
decades and generations to come"
While results thus strikingly warrant
drainage enterprises the work of reclaim
ing Georgias swamp and overflow lands
has scarcely begun. Little more than four
teen thousand acres have yet been won
from the marshy wilderness. The aggre-
gate in need of drainage is nearly eight
million acres Of this immense total three
million one hundred and fifty-one thousand
acres represent periodically overflowed and
permanent swamp land; three million, five
hundred and ninety-one thousand wet
grazing land; approximately six hundred
and twenty-eight thousand periodically
swamped land; upwards of one hundred and
ninety-sx thousand acres require under
drainage, and three thousand and fifty-two
thousand acres Is Iludl MAJ 81 ldlu
"With these nearly eight million acres,
constituting one-seventeenth of the states
entire area, as field for development Hol-
land or Belgium would count herself sur
passingly rich," says the Journal. "lntrin-
sically they are worth just as much in -Geor-
gia as they would be in Europe. Their fer
tility is no less, their capacity for turning
forth bountiful crops is no less, their sig
nificance to economic and human interests
is no less. Apply to them the Transforming
touches of science and thrift and they will
make up another empire within the Empire
State"
Some months ago there was movement
on the part of some of the land owners in
Terrell county to drain Chickasawhatchee
swamp, and convert hundreds of now worth
less acres into productive and valuable land,
but for some reason no progress has been
made. Owners of land along this creek
could not invest in anything that would
bring greater returns in both wealth and
health.