One of the early engineering marvels of the New World was undertaken when in the 1700s when Acadian farmers built dykes around 5000 hectares of salt marshes on the Bay of Fundy, effectively gaining them back from the ocean. The soil was salt free in three years, allowing them to become fully self-sufficient in their primary foods. On them they grew cereal crops like wheat; pastured thousands of cattle, sheep, swine and horses and harvested sea vegetables from the shore.
