MINNESOTA FOR IRRIGATION. 



While nature has poured forth her waters so copiously over Min- 

 nesota that its 7,000 lakes and numerous water courses leave it no di- 

 rect interest in the extension of the irrigation systems, it has a close 

 interest in a wisely conceived and economically executed policy of 

 irrigation, says the Pioneer Press, Montana, Idaho, and Washing- 

 ton are all tributary, in a business sense, to this State. 



The growth of their populations and the prosperity of their peo- 

 ples are important factors in the growth and prosperity of Minnesota. 

 A national policy that promises to cover the arid lands or the reclaim - 

 able portion of them with prosperous cultivators and their families is, 

 therefore, a policy of considerable importance to the Twin Cities and 

 other communities in this State. 



In Montana alone there are some 93,000,000 acres, of arid land 

 practically uninhabitable and worthless. But of this area it is esti- 

 mated that 10 per cent., or some 9,300,000 acres, is capable of reclama- 

 tion. There is, in other words, sufficient water available to convert 

 this area into fertile farm land. 



It has been estimated by those interested in this project that this 

 area, on the theory that forty acres would support a family of five, 

 would make room fora population of 1,165,000. This estimate of 

 eighty people to the square mile is not intended, of course, to represent 

 the immediate population that would take homes on the reclaimed area. 

 It represents the capacity of this land, and considering the popularity 

 of such lands is by no means impossible that such a population 

 might at no distant day be found on what is now practically a desert 

 that contributes nothing to the wealth of the Northwest and takes 

 nothing from it. 



Big and little industries throughout the country, from the rail- 

 roads to the individual laborer, have something to gain from the devel- 

 opment of these practically empty and waste regions of the Western 

 States. 



In one sense it is no less important than the encouragement of 

 railroads, one of whose principle functions is to establish new commu- 

 nities and make business for the older ones. A railroad to the heart 

 of Sahara could not enrich the community from which it started. 

 Population is the foundation of all business, and every family settled 

 in the regian tributary to Minnesota's railways is so much gain to 

 Minnesota. 



