The Importance of Cooperative Labour in Dykeland Farming
Perhaps the greatest difficulty faced by those wishing to make the transition from salt marsh farming to dykeland farming is not the mastering the technology of dyke and aboiteau construction, but the difficulties posed by the fact that dykeland farming “depends entirely on co-operative labour” (Ross and Deveau 1992, p.31 – 36). The need for cooperation is nicely expressed by Professor Kimberly Seabold in her publication Transforming the Salt-Marsh Landscape: A Geographic, Economic and Cultural Comparision (Seabold 2008, p.3).
“Land reclamation, the bringing into use all types of unused land and for the purpose of this paper particularly through the removal of surplus water from wet lands, required community action; one person could not afford the expense of draining his land privately nor could he afford to buy a waterway and the land surrounding it in order to better contain the impact of his drainage efforts. In many instances, one could not keep land drainage contained to his property; when a person upstream altered a water course he affected his neighbors downstream. Furthermore, the person constructing the dyke and digging drainage ditches needed his neighbor’s cooperation; an adjacent parcel of marsh land most likely needed to be drained in order for surrounding drainage projects to be successful. At the least, access to a neighbor’s property was needed in order to do the necessary repairs on the banks or dikes.”
In the same publication (Seabold 2008, p.10) Professor Seabold provides an example that illustrates what happens when salt marsh owners are not willing to work together:
“Isaiah Milliken of Old Orchard, Maine in York County explained that lack of cooperation was the major problem facing those who wanted to dike portions of the salt marsh in the neighboring towns of Scarborough and Cape Elizabeth:”
[There is] 60 or 80 acres on Sperwink River…that could be diked for about $100 per acre, but two or three peculiar persons are in the way who neither sell nor dike, and they are able to prevent improvement…Such opposition is the great hinderance to reclamation.
In their book English Local Government: Statutory Authorities for Special Purposes (Webb, Sidney and Beatrice 1922, p.16) Sidney and Beatrice Webb give the following description of the lack of cooperation that occurred in efforts during the Middle Ages to drain and dyke England’s East Anglia Fenlands.
“But when each man had raised his bank, or built the bit of river wall that protected his own land, he was often still liable to be flooded out by a high tide or spring freshet, owing to the neglect of his neighbour to keep the bank in repair, or to the want of uniformity in their defences against the common enemy. A small breach at any one point might, any winter, flood not the land of the negligent owner alone but the whole of the neighbouring lowlands”
To cope with this lack of teamwork, a series of Parliamentary enactments were introduced, between 1427 to 1532, that created for each low-lying part of England a so- called “local governing authority” to administer embanking and land drainage.
The last act in this series, passed in the time of King Henry VIII, is known as the “Great Statute of Sewers of 1532”. For any given salt marsh the act appointed one or more administrators called Commissioners of Sewers. Their powers were well defined by the 1535 Statute of Sewers and included, for example, the ability to “impress into their service as many carts, horses, oxen, beasts and other instruments," and also as many "workmen and labourers" as they deemed necessary….” As well they had the power to execute "according to their wisdoms and discretions "the needful works…and to “apportion the estimated cost of the work among all those whose lands benefited. In order to enforce their decisions Commissioners of Sewers were “empowered to hold, when and where they chose, within the area prescribed by their Commission, the so-called Court of Sewers”; verdicts were arrived at by Juries appointed by a Sheriff. (Webb, Sidney and Beatrice 1922, p.18-27).
England abolished its Commissioners of Sewers method for administrating dykelands in 1930 “as a result of the Land Drainage Act and their functions were transferred to Internal Drainage Boards.” (Administrative history section of COMMISSIONERS OF SEWERS FOR THE EAST RIDING)
To deal with the reclamation of problems of cooperation and organization, Maine and New Jersey also passed legislation to create “local governing authorities” to administer the construction of seawalls and tide gates. New Jersey experienced far grater success its legislation than did Maine. Seabold in her paper Transforming the Salt-Marsh Landscape: A Geographic, Economic and Cultural Comparision (Seabold 2008, p.3) offers an explination, she writes
“This paper will examine the importance of cooperation and organization as it corresponds to successful land reclamation. It will compare and contrast the success of salt-marsh reclamation along coastal Maine and coastal New Jersey. More importantly, it argues that coastal New Jersey’s reclamation schemes were far more successful because of the organizational layers that reinforced cooperation and because many of those involved in reclamation were attached to each other via Quakerism. Maine’s coastal reclamation schemes were far less successful because there were little to no organizational layers to reinforce the cooperation needed for the drainage of its salt marshes. Furthermore, the paper will speculate on why this lack of complex management existed in Maine.”
A Local Governing Authority for the New England Planters
Nova Scotia’s efforts at dealing with the reclamation of problems of cooperation and organization began in 1760 when the 4th session of the Nova Scotia General Assembly passed “An act for appointing Commissioners of Sewers ”. This act appears to be modeled on the “Great Statute of Sewers of 1532” because it contains s footnote titled “Statute 23, Henry VIII, Chapter 5” , a statute dealing with England’s Commissioners of Sewers, their function and powers (Blackstone 1832, p. 56).
“An act for appointing Commissioners of Sewers ” most likely indicates that Governor Lawrence, his Council, and the General Assembly anticipated that the New England Planters would, if they worked cooperatively, make the transition from salt marsh farmers to dykeland farmers. In fact the act specifically states that the “intent [is] therefore, that the new settlers, and other proprietors of such marshes, meadows and low grounds, may be encouraged and enabled to raise dykes, and remove such obstructions, as prevent these lands from being immediately useful.”
The Laws of England: In Four Books with an Analysis of the Work
Sir William Blackstone
1832
Google Books
http://books.google.ca/books?id=PPpBAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA58&lpg=PA58&dq=england+statute+23+h8+c5&source=bl&ots=tNo7cN4EkI&sig=qRUKTx4hA7eEz4o7dG-a-UcjoLg&hl=en&ei=hRmyTeyxAo-C0QG1lIGpCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBcQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
The Commissioners were to meet as occasions required in order to devise ways and methods for building and repairing dykes and to employ workmen for reasonable wages. The raise funds to cover wages and other expenses they were to assess and tax the marsh owners an amount that depended on each owner’s quantity of land. The Commissioners and to appoint a collector or collectors with powers to distrain all such persons who do not make payment of his, her, proportions as assessed. For those who neglect payment it was lawful for the other proprietors to pay the said assessments and hold the lands of those who neglected payment until rents and profits from those lands reimbursed them.
Problems involving the payment of taxes must have arisen fairly soon after the 1760 legislation because in 1763 the Act required an amendment. The preamble to the amendment stated that the Commissioners of Sewers “are not sufficiently impowered by the said Act [1760 act] to recover from the several persons neglecting or refusing to make payment. The amendment now allowed the Commissioners of Sewers to make a complaint on oath to a Justice of Peace. The Justice could then direct a constables for the county to sell goods and chattels belonging to the person neglecting or refusing to make payment. If sufficient goods and chattels were not available the delinquents were to be committed to safe custody until full payments are made. In 1765 a small addition involving goods and chattels was added to the Act.
One wonders if some marsh owners were strongly against the dyking of salt marshes and as well if they were willing to sabotage dykes that were already built? Maybe the answer is yes and prompted in 1766 the passing of an act separate from “An act for appointing Commissioners of Sewers ” called “An act to prevent the cutting or breaking down the Bank of any River, Seabank, or Dykes”. This act provided severe punishments for two categories of dyke destruction offences. In first category a fine of 20 pounds (part to be paid to the informer and part for the poor of the township) was the penalty given to any person or persons who unlawfully cut off, draw up or remove and carry away, any piles or other materials which are or will be at some later time be for the securing of dykes. Offenders who can not pay the fine and who also do not have sufficient goods and chattels to cover the fine were to be incarcerated for six months at hard labour.
The second category defined by 1766 Act dealt with the unlawfully and maliciously cutting or breaking of dykes or river banks to an extent that lands behind the dykes would now be inundated by the sea and damaged. Any person or persons lawfully convicted of this offence had to suffer death without benefit of clergy.
In 1768 it was again necessary to amend the 1760 act for appointing Commissioners of Sewers. Commissioners had been complaining that the act did not permit, them in times of emergency, to immediately hire labourers in lieu of marshland proprietors. The Commissioners needed to be able to hire quickly in crisis situations in order to prevent the sea overflowing dykes and greatly damaged or destroying crops. To correct this problem the 1768 amendment stated that each and every owner of marshlands in any township, district, or place in the province (where Commissioners of Sewers are appointed) where dykes are being built or repaired shall attend either by himself or provide sufficient labour with proper tools, to work at the time and place appointed by the said Commissioner of Sewers.
1769 brought another addition to the Act. Experience now showed that in many cases it was impracticable to lease lands of non-resident and delinquent proprietors for defraying the expences of dyking. An amendment was therefore added allowing the commissioners to run a three-month advertisement in public print for letting out lands of delinquent owners and if this does not find someone willing to hire then the commissioners can order the provost marshel to sell at public auction, to the highest bidder, the delinquent lands. In 1771 a further amendment provided a method for appealing cases of sail of land by commissioners.
In 1781 another addition to the act involving the following problem was made. “Whereas many persons are great suffers by the cutting of sods or soil, for the making of dykes, and others are also sufferers by washing away of considerable pieces of marsh-land, which were allotted to them as part of their share, in tracts of marsh land, divided between them and other proprietors, in the townships in this province, owing to the dykes made to secure the whole concerned in said marsh land, and that it is reasonable some compensation should be made for such loss so sustained”.
1790 it frequently happens, that the Commissioners of Sewers are proprietors of a great proportion of such lands, whereby equal justice will not be done to the proprietors in general; for remedy whereof:
if expenses exceed 5 shillings per acre commissioners to summon owners to meet to elect 5 assessors to asses and tax the marsh owners (according to the quantity, quality of their land, and benefits received) for the cost of repairing dykes.
1793 addition specifying that Commissioners must call meetings only when the land holdings of proprietors added together amounts to 50% or more want a meeting.
1813 amendment: Commissioners to keep a record book of all proceedings, expenses, monies received, etc.