Page:History of Southeast Missouri 1912 Volume 1.djvu/420

 360 HISTORY OF SOUTHEAST MISSOURI timber. Among the finest forests to be found in the state or in the whole country were growing on the ovei-flowed lands of Southeast Missouri. This timber became exceedingly valuable and much of it was cleared away, but the cut- ting of the timber was for many years the only thing that was done in connection with the overflowed lands. So long as the popula- tion in the alluvial district was sparse and so long as land was consequently cheap, but little attention was paid to the reclamation of the overflowed lauds. In 1850 the United States donated to the several states the swamp lands contained within their limits. By an act of the General Assembly passed in 1852, Missouri conveyed to the different counties the title to the swamp lands within them to be disposed of in such a way as to j^romote their drainage. There thus came into control of these counties large bodies of overflowed lands at the time having no great value for any purpose whatever. The first disposition attempted to be made of them by the various counties was to grant them for the purpose of aiding the construction of roads and rail- roads. We have seen that when the Cairo & Fulton railroad was promoted that the coun- ties affected by it subscribed to its cai)ital stock in swamp lands. After the first ex- citement consequent upon the attempts to build railroads had somewhat subsided, the counties began to transfer their swamp lands to private owners usually in a way, ostensibly at least, to promote drainage. It was found very difficult, however, properly to drain these lands. The slope was usually about one foot a mile from north to south and the quantity of water to be handled at certain seasons of the year was so vast that local ditches were found to be entirely insufficient to handle it. On account of this fact the lands wei-e for many years practically flood lands; they could not be sold for even the minimum price of $1.25 per acre, so that the greater part of the lands remained in the possession of the counties, and some of them were granted to aid in the construction of levees. The inability to construct sufficient ditches was principally due to inadequate methods of construction and it was not until the in- vention of the dipper dredge, which since its improvement is capable of handling 2,000 cu- bic .yards of earth a day and of cutting a canal through the swamp, that it became at all possible to drain these lands. After this dipper dredge was invented and came to be known as an efficient instrument, a movement was begun in the counties having swamp lands, for the organization of districts for the purpose of digging ditches. The land in much of this district was taxed so mucii an acre for the purjjose of digging and the ditches were dug to the southern limit of the district carrying the water to the next dis- trict. Some efficient work was done in this way and some land reclaimed. It was found, however, that there were other difficulties, there was no scheme for Iniilding a system of ditclies aiul for this reason some of the work that was done in the early days was not pro- ductive of very good results. There was a failure to appreciate the magnitude of the enterprise and most of the early ditches were entirely too small for the purpose for which they were constructed. The construction, however, has gone on and up to this time there have been constnicted more than 1,600 miles of canals at an approximate cost of $2,500 a mile. Most of these canals are from 12 to 20 feet in width and from 8 to 14 feet in depth. It has usiially been estimated that each mile of ditch reclaims one section of land.