Dredging is necessary to keep rivers, harbors and lakes function normally. These dredged materials (DM) have poor geotechnical properties and are normally treated as wastes. Thus, utilization of DM for beneficial uses such as fill is being considered as an environmental-friendly and economical option. In this study a dredged material taken from Tai-hu Lake was modified by adding quicklime and by Portland cement. Water content, dry density, plasticity, and California bearing ratio (CBR) of the two types of modified soil were determined and compared. Test results show that both quicklime and cement can evidently decrease the water content and increase dry density, but the former can get better effect relatively. On the other hand, both quicklime and cement can significantly decrease the plasticity characteristics, and change the raw DM classified as CH to MH after modified, moreover, the cement has better effect on the improvement of plasticity. For the same additive content and curing days, the cement modified soil has larger CBR strength than that of the quicklime modified soil. Conclusions of the paper maybe beneficial and useful for the solidification material choose, and for practical dredged material solidification projects.