The process of gradually reclaiming new land from the waves is somewhat curious. As soon as a sufficient amount of deposit has been thrown up from the sea, outguards, or breakwaters, called _höfter_ are immediately erected. Within the breakwater there remains a pool of still water, which by degrees fills up with a rich slime or mud called _slick_. As soon as the slick has attained an elevation sufficient to be above the regular level of the high waves, plants styled "_Queller_" appear, and are soon succeeded by others termed _Drücknieder_, from the tendency of their interlaced roots and tendrils to keep down the soft mud. In the course of years, the soil rises, and a meadow takes the place of the former stagnant pool. As these new lands are extremely productive, often yielding three hundred-fold on the first crop of rape-seed, sixty to eighty fold on barley, and from thirty to forty on wheat, their possession is ever a subject of great dispute. Formerly the diking and embankments were undertaken by companies; but at present they are in the hands of the Danish government, which makes all necessary outlay in the beginning, and appropriates whatever surplus may remain upon the original cost to future repairs and to the aid of the general poor fund. Some slight idea may be formed of the enormous expense incurred in the construction and maintenance of these dikes, when we state that the _Dagebieller_ dike alone cost ten thousand dollars for one recent repair. Ninety thousand dollars were one summer spent in building embankments around reclaimed land, now valued at one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, thus showing a clear gain of sixty thousand dollars by the undertaking. The embankments are generally from fifteen to twenty feet high. When the nature of the soil upon which they are raised is considered, together with the scarcity of wood on these low lands, it will not be difficult to understand that constant labour is needed to prevent the land from being undermined by the sea, and that it is only by unremitting industry, and constant attention to the condition of the breakwaters and dikes, that the enemy can at all be kept at bay.