1874-Annual Report - Laserfiche WebLink

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11 they did themselves. We also found a large quantity of good peat laud growing, up to birches and maples,•brakes, briers, alders and other brush, which could easily be re- claimed and converted into the most productive of land, if the water could only be drained off. We found acres of land which had been cleared of wood and in some cases .of brush, the income from which would scarcely pay the labor of cut- ting the grass, but which on a proper drainage would be made highly productive. Some of this land consisted of bogs, separated from each other, with low wet spaces between them, with no grass growing, except upon the bogs, and that of a very poor quality; and though the coarse wild grass upon .the bogs, when seen at a distance, would seem to de- note a considerable crop of hay, when closly examined, it would be found hardly worth mowing. Nor could such land be materially improved without draining. We found several lots of this character, and none of them could he effectually drained without the exercise of some such power as that contained in the bill under which we have acted. Mr. Moakeley, Mr. Foster, and Mr. Osbarne might wish to drain their meadows ; but between them and the proper outlet there was a space of three-quarters of a mile or more, with a fall of only about 28 inches to our main street; and nothing that they could do, would relieve them of these floods, un- less they could get the consent and co-operation of all the land owners below—which they could not do. Even land within eighty rods of our main street, could not be drained, because one owner below held the outlet of the meadow, and did not wish to have the channel lowered. • So of the North Meadows. All above Bedford street were subject to the control of the owners of the land immediately below that street. With a fall of only six or seven inches in seventeen hundred feet, the owners of the land in those meadows could do little or nothing towards ridding them- selves of an overflow two or three_ times in a year: And the owners of meadows below Bedford street, held them, so far as. drainage was concerned, subject to the control of the