IO8 THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM 



cents a bushel reduction in freight, and the same added 

 to the farmers' prices of grain, would, in twenty years, 

 pay every mortgage on all the farms of the Corn Belt. 



With less than half the necessary man-power to op- 

 erate farms already in cultivation, the Federal develop- 

 ment of irrigating systems in the West was premature. 

 Had one-half the amount of money invested by the 

 Department of Reclamation Service been expended 

 upon the Missouri River, from Kansas City up, 

 straightening that stream and fitting it for navigation, 

 the land incidentally reclaimed thereby would have 

 been quite as large in acreage, and more than 100 per 

 cent, richer in fertility, than that reclaimed in the 

 mountain districts by irrigation ; the climatic conditions 

 of the Missouri Valley make a greater diversity of 

 crops possible; and besides that, the foodstuffs pro- 

 duced are from 500 to 1000 miles nearer to the Seaboard 

 and our chief consuming centers, than the products 

 from the irrigated lands are. This river and the Mis- 

 sissippi open to navigation, by reducing freight rates, 

 would result in greater profit to our farmers, and at 

 the same time lower prices to the consumer. 



The undeveloped irrigable lands are a national as- 

 set, which will keep indefinitely. By erosion, soil ele- 

 ments which it would require millions to replace 

 are annually being carried down the Mississippi and 

 Missouri Rivers, and dumped into the Gulf of Mexico. 



