96 THREE ACRES AND LIBERTY 



the moisture below from evaporating, and at the same time 

 keeps the surface in such condition that it readily absorbs 

 the dew and the showers. Water moves in the soil as it 

 does in a lamp wick, by capillary attraction ; the more deeply 

 and densely the soil is saturated with moisture, the more 

 easily the water moves upward, just as oil "climbs up" a 

 wet wick faster than it does a dry one. One can illustrate 

 the effect of this fine soil "mulch" in preventing evaporation 

 by placing some powdered sugar on a lump of loaf sugar and 

 putting the lump sugar in water. The powdered sugar will 

 remain dry even when the lump has become so thoroughly 

 saturated that it crumbles to pieces. 



"We have no useless American acres," said Secretary 

 Wilson. "We shall make them all productive. We have 

 agricultural explorers in every far corner of the world ; and 

 they are finding crops which have become so acclimated to 

 dry conditions, similar to our own West, that we shall in 

 time have plants thriving upon our so-called arid lands. 

 We shall cover this arid area with plants of various sorts 

 which will yield hundreds of millions of tons of additional 

 forage and grains for Western flocks and herds. Our farmers 

 will grow these upon land now considered practically worth- 

 less." 



In this way it has been estimated that in the neighborhood 

 of one hundred million acres of the American desert can be 

 reclaimed to the most intensive agriculture. 1 Frederick V. 

 Coville, the chief botanist of the Department of Agriculture, 

 does not hesitate to say that in the strictly arid regions 

 there are many millions of acres, now considered worthless 



1 See a study of the possible additions to available land in Prof. 

 W. S. Thompson's "Population, a Study of Malthusianism," Col. 

 U., 1915. 



