ABSTRACT
The term “reclamation” will be applied to improvements which, in one way or another, alter the natural condition—and particularly the quality—of the soil. In Europe, the Governments have long devoted themselves to reclamation works, since these usually have to be extended over large areas at a cost beyond the reach of individual landowners. In Palestine, reclamation is doubly necessary after the rack and ruin of innumerable conquests and devastations, which robbed the land of its inhabitants, so that it lay untilled and neglected for centuries. During the pre-war period, long as it was, too little attention was paid to the subject. Although malaria is one of the severest obstacles to the progress of colonization—it fully undermines the working capacity of the immigrants—little or nothing was done to obviate it. In the post-war Zionist colonization a radical change was made. The settlers were no longer dumped down on marsh lands.
