PUBLIC PARKS OF IOWA 197 



is probably also constant, taken one year with an other over long periods 

 of time. This we may admit as true with the probable exception that 

 our data, if sufficiently extended backward, might show a gradual, though 

 very slight, decrease for all the western Mississippi valley. The average 

 rainfall of the past eight years has been for Iowa as follows: 



Inches 



1890 31.12 



1891 33.13 



1892 35.74 



1893 27.31 



1894 21.95 



1895 26.63 



1896 37.45 



1897 (11 months) 24.98 



We pass through seasons dry and wet; as Mr. Sage expresses it we 

 have our "ups and downs ; " but is it not plain that it is not so mucih the 

 volume of rainfall in this part of the world as the amount of it, that 

 in our processes of agriculture and elsewhere, we are enabled to use 

 that must be considered? All that may be said in reference to constancy 

 of our climate and the average uniformity of our rainfall may be granted, 

 and yet I believe that the problem I have broached is a real one, a very 

 real one, worthy the consideration of this body and demanding now the 

 most serious attention at the hands of this whole people. The rainfall 

 may be absolutely constant, or subject only to variations such as are 

 continental, planetary if you please in origin, arid yet the amount of 

 moisture available for use in any particular locality for any given time 

 may depend on causes which may be traced wholly or in great part to 

 human agencies. 



Such cases are, therefore, under our control. As I have already re- 

 marked, our methods of agriculture affect in profoundest fashion the re- 

 cipient and retentive characters of the ground. 



Permit me to carry my argument a little further. Our streams are 

 threatened because we have cut off their sources of perennial supply. 

 Omnipresent drainage and tillage has affected, is affecting, more and 

 more their constancy. 



The question of general humidity interests primarily the farmer, and 

 the farmer is mainly responsible for present conditions and tendencies; 

 but, the existence of our rivers effects those of the city perhaps even 

 more than those of the field. Along the Iowa river for instance are El- 

 dora, Iowa Palls, Marshalltown, Iowa Oity, and other towns of only less 

 importance, all dependent upon the river for their water supply. The 

 Iowa river rises in Hancock county. Until within a few years that county 

 contained thousands of acres of marsh land, peat bogs, lakes, among 

 which Eagle Lake was large enough to receive a name. What is the situ- 

 ation now? The marshes of Hancock county have been drained, the 

 peat-beds support harvests of grain, and Eagle lake has given place to 

 corn fields over which passes, autumn and springtime alike, the farmer's 

 triumphant plow. The history of smaller tributaries to the river is pre- 

 cisely the same, all the way until it receives the Cedar and finally pours a 



