6 AMERICAN FORESTRY 



drainage all the country that it passes through, whether the district author- 

 ities like the result or not. Such a benefit to the lower region must be paid 

 for by the people of the district. In other words, they must be assessed for 

 benefits to lands in which they have no immediate interest. 



We might illustrate a score or more of conditions of similar purport, 

 all of which prove substantially that logically, ethically, and financially, the 

 drainage of a swamp should comprise all the lands in a particular basin. 

 There should be participation in the expense by every land owner, or there 

 will be an inequitable distribution of expense. Is it not evident, then, that 

 drainage is a big afifair, to be planned and executed on a broad basis and to 

 be financed in a way that will ensure success? Drainage is no "peanut-stand" 

 proposition, and it is just as absurd, just as foolish, to try to divide a great 

 swamp up into unrelated districts as it would be to divide a great trunk 

 railway system into a collection of unrelated county or municipal units. But 

 up to the present time our drainage work has largely been on a '"peanut- 

 stand" basis and many of the propositions for future development are con- 

 ceived with no more breadth of view. 



There is only one drainage project from Cape Girardeau to the Gulf; 

 only one in the valley of the Red River of the North ; one in the Tombigbee 

 valley; one on the Apalachicola; one on the Kankakee of Indiana; and one 

 on the Suwannee of Florida. I know that good men say that such a con- 

 ception is too large and impracticable, but I am persuaded that this can 

 not be true. It is my opinion that the problems involved in the drainage 

 of all the swamp lands in the United States combined do not encounter the 

 real difficulties and the untried engineering questions that are comprised in 

 the construction of the Catskill water-supply tunnel of New York, or the 

 installation of the new water supply of the city of Los Angeles. 



THE SCOPE OF A DRAINAGE SYSTEM 



I have suggested in a brief and incomplete way that which seems to me 

 to be the necessary scope of a drainage system, and have tried to show that 

 there are certain immutable laws of nature that must govern every drainage 

 operation. Of course it is not intended to imply that every drainage scheme 

 must at the outset provide for the immediate reclamation of every part of a 

 swamp area, however great. That which is insisted upon without any reser- 

 vation whatsoever is, that no drainage scheme should be carried forward 

 without study of the entire basin within which lies the part immediately to 

 be drained, and that every piece of work done, both interior and exterior, 

 must be fashioned with due regard for the necessities of every other part of 

 the basin. While it may be necessary or expedient in certain cases to drain 

 lands by reclamation in small ])rogressive units, the tendency should' ever 

 be toward the larger and more c<»ini)rehensive work, bearing in mind that the 

 end for which every one should strive is the inclusion of all swamp lands 

 within any river basin. In one region at least, of which I have personal 

 knowledge, the peoi)le, having started out on a broad and comprehensive basis, 

 are now inclined to divide up the original area into several independent 

 districts. That is real retrogression, and I can conceive of no greater drain- 

 age folly. 



