Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1921-04-14
. Our Submerged Empire

INCREDIBLY magical though it sounds,
is a act that lands which lately were
valued at fifty ceLts an acre are now
worth from fifty to one hundred dollars, and
are capable of adding millions a year to the
property of their region. In the Coastal
Plain country of North Carolina approx
mately six hundred thousand acres have
been thus transmitted from unproductive and
unusable swamps into farm sites of won
drous fertility. Writing ir the current num-
Der of the Manufacturers Record, DR.. Joseph
Hyde Pratt, director of the North Carolina
Geological and Economic Survey, points out
that these lands, prior to drainage, were as
sessabIe at never more than two dollars an
acre, frequently as low as twenty-five cents,
and at an average Of about fifty cents.
Touching the results of reclamation,\ he
quotes Congressman John H. Small to this
effect: ST presume it is fair statement to
make, that the market. value, uron an aver
age, of these lands today is $50 an acre, and
so times 5000 acres is $30,000,000; so
that there has been added to tbs assets Of the
State lands hich heretofC~J were not worth
more than 100000, or certainly $1,200,00O
which are now worth at least $30,000,000.
Any public movement which can set forth to
the people of the State an increment to the
economic wealth of our people to that extent
is entitled the favorable consideration g
the people of North Carolina
Not of North Carolina only, but of the en-
tire South. 1t is conserVatively reckOned
that in the Southern States there arc fifty
million acres of swamp and overlooked land
which can De drained at costs altogether rea-
sonable. If it be counted as worth ten dol
little more than a 1.-THE as much) drainage
would fncre.' it's value to one hundred dol
lars. And that would mean, in the aggre-
gate, an advance from five hundred million
to five billio: dollars Better than the dis
covery of gold mines, incomparably better,
are the, opportunities and treasures awaiting
development in these millions of marvellous
ly fertile acres.
The fruits of reclamati lion in North Caro-
lima are paralleled in Georgia, though in this
State by far " greater portion of the drain
age district as been formed in the Piedmont
area, not in the Coastal Plain. IL the Geor-
gia Piedmont area the average cost of drain
age is twentv-six and fifty---x cents an acre;
in the Coastal Plain, owing to the larger size
the districts, the average cost is three dol
lars and ninety+hree cents an acre. By these
relatively small expenditures, the value OF
every acre imI owed can be increased to up
wards of one hundred dollars-in many in
stances to one hundred and fifty, or more.
Bearing in mind hat Georgia has nearly
eight million acres of swamp aid overlooked
lands-more - N has any ether Atlantic
Seaboard State with the exception Of Flori",
One can lastly see what a vast deal rec
lamation will mean to the productive lower
and the prosperity of this Commonwealth.
Merely as a means of mu- tip1ying taxable val
ues and thereby increasing State revenue,
the drainage of these lands. should receive
the largest possible measure of Legislative
and Executi encouragement. To this con-
sideration, add the manifold benefits to the
communities directly co med, the price
less gains n health, and, particularly, ex-
emption. of malaria, and it is plain that in
the carrying forward If reclamation prof.
ects lies one of the great means of Geor
GAS enrichment and upbuilding.