THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



VOL. XIII. 



CHICAGO, APRIL 1899. 



NO. 7, 



THE PROGRESS OF WESTERN RMERIGH 



A Breed 

 of Men. 



Speaking of the Progress of 

 "Western America, we must 

 not overlook the fact to which 

 that progress is true. It is solely to the 

 kind of men the west breeds, self-reliant, 

 adaptable, big physically, morally, men- 

 tally, and every other way. This charac- 

 teristic "bigness" is nothing to be sur- 

 prised at. The west is a land of big things 

 big lakes, big prairies, big mountains, 

 big rivers, etc. It would be surprising, 

 indeed, if such environments should fail to 

 produce big men. 



What a glorious record the men o_f the 

 west are making to day in the far east. 

 They are bearing the brunt of the war in 

 the Philippines. Their dash, energy and 

 efficiency is permeating the old world with 

 a healthy respect for the American citizen 

 soldier. Their actions may not be charac- 

 terized by the machine-like precision of 

 Uncle Sam's regulars. Perhaps they make 

 much more noise when charging the enemy 

 than is called for by array regulations. 

 Their knowledge of the science of ware- 

 fare may be limited to the desire to get 

 within fighting reach of the enemy and 

 then annihilate him. But do you notice 

 how they "get there?' 1 Nothing can stop 

 them. 



So long as Uncle Sam can breed such 

 lusty nephews in his western territory so 

 long will he never lack sufficient intelli- 

 gent soldiery to hold his own against the 

 combined strength of foreign rivals. The 

 "military geniuses'' of Europe, bred in the 

 atmosphere of an "I am better than thou" 

 society, tell us that it requires a year or 



two to whip raw recruits into shape. They 

 overlook the fact that the armies of Europe 

 are recruited from the ranks of the in- 

 capables, whereas the American Volun- 

 teer is an intelligent unit who knows what 

 he has to fight with, fights because he 

 wants to, and when the fighting is over is 

 ready for anything that "turns up." 



All of which inevitably suggests the 

 moral that your Uncle Samuel has no use 

 for a large standing army. If anybody 

 says we do he is either a traitor or a 

 coward. 



We recently received the J an- 

 uar ^' February and March 

 numbers of The Forester, the 

 official organ of the American Forestry 

 Association. We should be glad to wel- 

 come so neat and attractive a magazine 

 even were its aims entirely apart from 

 ours, but our fields are so closely allied that 

 we are still more pleased to number it 

 among our exchanges. Irrigation and 

 forestry should go hand in hand, for our 

 mighty forest growths conserve the moist- 

 ure which would otherwise run to waste, 

 if it did not do positive damage. Where 

 ever you find a treeless section of country 

 there you find an arid or semi-arid region, 

 whose slight rainfall runs off the barren 

 hills, scarcely moistening the under sur- 

 face. While in a country thickly grown 

 with woods the rain is "caught," as we 

 might say. by the leaves, branches and 

 roots of the trees, sinks into the earth, to 

 reappear later on in a trickling spring 

 which helps to swell a river. India and 

 Germany are two countries that have rec- 



