208 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



April 



and places them in the hands of the 

 Secretary of the Interior for drainage 

 construction, as in the case of the irri- 

 gation reclamation act. As under that 

 act, the fund becomes a revolving one, 

 the amounts by which the Govern- 

 ment is repaid for the cost of drain- 

 age construction, going back into the 

 fund to be used in future projects. 



In the account published in For- 

 estry AND Irrigation of the re- 

 cent National Drainage Congress 

 at Baltimore, the general statis- 



ornia. The report also shows that the 

 Reclamation Service is conducting 

 actual drainage construction on a 

 large scale in connection with a num- 

 ber of the Western irrigation projects, 

 so that, as Secretary Garfield points 

 out. these two bureaus of his depart- 

 ment are fully prepared to prosecute 

 any further new drainage work, either 

 surveys and plans, or construction. 



]\Iany of the best friends of this 

 proposed development of a great la- 

 tent resource of the Nation, express 



Not all cf this work is in remote regions — Here are drainage ditches on 

 Staten Island, New York — Constructed in connection with mosquito 

 war, but incidentally the land grows paying crops of hay 



tics regarding the areas of swamp 

 lands were stated ; but since then a re- 

 port has been transmitted to Congress 

 by the Secretary of the Interior, giv- 

 ing some further interesting informa- 

 tion, and showing that the Geological 

 Survey has made a preliminary inves- 

 tigation and survey of large areas of 

 swamp lands, and is now conducting 

 a number of special drainage surveys, 

 notably in Minnesota, Mississippi, and 

 the great Sacramento A^allev of Calif- 



grave doubt as to the constitutionality 

 of the drainage by the Government of 

 land in private ownership. There 

 would appear to be no real difference 

 between improving either by irriga- 

 tion or drainage a tract of land which 

 is today Government land, but when 

 reclaimed tomorrow will be home- 

 steaded and become privately owned, 

 and reclaiming land which was home- 

 steaded yesterday, but which must re- 

 main undeveloped unless reclaimed. 



