Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 1.djvu/457

 seventeenth century to redeem even in part the vast expanse of marsh to be found here and there on the margins of the principal streams. Indeed, previous to 1700, but little ground in the swamps of the various plantations had been reclaimed. This was the case not only when Glover and Clayton were sojourning in the Colony, but also as far into the following century as the first years of the Spotswood administration, an Act being passed by the General Assembly in 1712, making the draining of permanently wet land one of the conditions, compliance with which gave an absolute title to the whole tract in which the soil thus rendered arable was situated. The desire of the local government that the marshes and swamps should as far as possible be put into a state of cultivation or general use is shown in the provision adopted in 1672, allowing the owner of land recently acquired in the immediate neighborhood of such areas, the privilege of suing out a patent to them at any time in the course of the first six months immediately succeeding the date on which a notice by others of an intention to obtain a title to these areas had been given. How little advantage was taken of this provision is revealed in the declaration of Berkeley, that it was doubtful if there were one hundred acres in the Colony which had been rescued from the tide or from standing pools. In 1671, a grant of four hundred acres was made to John Conyers in a locality bearing the name of Reedy Swamp and lying in Warwick County, a tract which had before been held by Major Charles Davis, but which was soon deserted by him as worthless. Conyers probably wished to use the ground covered by his patent as a range for his cattle. This seems to have been