WASTE OF NATURAL RESOURCES 

 AND NEED FOR CONSERVATION 



BY 



Mrs. Lydia Adams- Williams, Member of the Women's National Press Association 



E^OR years and years and years, 

 ^ with that prodigality which 

 ever characterizes those richly en- 

 dowed, we have like profligates wasted 

 and thoughtlessly destroyed the vast 

 and apparently unlimited store of 

 natural resources which a wise and 

 beneficent Providence has placed at 

 our disposal. 



Facing the firmly established fact 

 that in the space of a short half cen- 

 tury our population will have in- 

 creased to at least 150,000,000, and 

 with the incontrovertible evidence that 

 our natural resources are rapidly 

 dwindling, the American people, with 

 our indomitable President, Theodore 

 Roosevelt, in the lead, have at last 

 awakened to a realization of the enor- 

 mous and dangerous waste. Further, 

 the truth has been brought home that 

 upon the fundamental basis of our 

 natural resources rests the continu- 

 ance of our unprecedented prosperity 

 and phenomenal progress, and our 

 power to advance the cause of human- 

 ity the world over. 



With the view of comprehensively 

 planning the most efficient means of 

 utilizing and preserving our varied re- 

 sources, a number of Government 

 bureaus have been created, each one 

 of which deals with a specific branch 

 of the subject. 



The United States Reclamation 

 Service, which was created in 1902 to 

 carry out the provisions of the Recla- 

 mation Act, has for its especial field 

 the building of reservoirs and canals 

 whereby the floods may be stored and 

 the waters let out over the thirstv land, 

 thus reclaiming the desert by irriga- 

 tion, and providing homes for thous- 

 ands of tillers of the soil. 



The funds available for building are 



derived from the sale of public lands 

 in the States where reclamation work 

 is done — both agricultural and mineral 

 lands, and from water rights as these 

 are progressively developed. During 

 the twelve months ending June 30, 

 1907, $25,248,641 were expended. 

 During the present fiscal year not so 

 much is to be expended, as the fund 

 originally in hand has been largely re- 

 duced by the work already done. It 

 will be replenished by the sums re- 

 ceived from settlers, but these will not 

 be turned over to the Reclamation 

 Service until the end of the fiscal year. 

 The estimates for the year ending June 

 30, 1908, amount to $12,391,214; and 

 for the last half of 1908, some four or 

 five millions more. 



At the present time about 250,000 

 acres of arid land have been reclaimed, 

 and by 1910 the number of acres of 

 irrigated land is expected to be 1.600,- 

 000. This area is equal to 80,000 

 farms of twenty acres each ; or homes 

 for three to five hundred thousand 

 people. 



Works practically finished are 

 the Minidoka project in Idaho, the 

 Umatilla project in Oregon, the Belle 

 Fourche in South Dakota, the North 

 Platte in Nebraska and Wyoming, the 

 Shoshone in Wyoming, the Garden 

 City in Kansas, the Huntley in Mon- 

 tana, the Carlsbad in New Mexico, and 

 the Truckee-Carson in Nevada; of 

 works which are under way. the 

 largest now in hand are the Roosevelt 

 dam in Arizona, the Gunnison tunnel 

 in Colorado, the Shoshone and the 

 Pathfinder dams in Wyoming, the 

 Strawberry tunnel in Utah, and the 

 Laguna dam between Arizona and 

 California. 



The National Drainage Association 



;66 



