IRRIGATION FOR THE WEST. 



EXTRACT FROM PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT'S 



MESSAGE. 



The forests are natural reservoirs. By restraining the streams in 

 flood and replenishing them in drought they make possible the use of 

 waters otherwise wasted. They prevent the soil from washing, and 

 so protect the storage reservoirs from filling up with silt. Forest 

 conservation is therefore an essential condition of water conservation. 



The forests alone cannot, however, fully regulate and conserve 

 the waters of the arid region. Great storage works are necessary to 

 equalize the flow of streams and to save the flood waters. Their con- 

 struction has been conclusively shown to be an undertaking too vast 

 for private effort. Nor can it be best accomplished by the individual 

 states acting alone. Par-reaching interstate problems are involved; 

 and the resources of single states would often be inadequate. It is 

 properly a national function, at least in some of its features. It is as 

 right for the national government to make the streams and river of 

 the arid region useful by engineering works for water storage as to 

 make useful the rivers and harbors of the humid region by engineer- 

 ing works of another kind. The storing of the floods in reservoirs at 

 the headwaters of our rivers is but an enlargement of our present pol- 

 icy of river control under which levees are built on the lower reaches 

 of the same streams. 



The government should construct and maintain these reservoirs 

 as it does other public works. Where their purpose is to regulate the 

 flow of streams, the water should be turned 'freely into the channels 

 in the dry season to take the same course under the same laws as the 

 natural flow. 



The reclamation of the unsettled arid public lands presents a dif 

 ferent problem. Here it is not enough to regulate the flow of streams. 

 The object of the government is to dispose of the land to settlers who 

 will build homes upon it. To accomplish this object water must be 

 brought within their reach. 



The pioneer settlers on the arid public domain chose their homes 

 along streams from which they could themselves divert the water to 

 reclaim their holdings. Such opportunities are practically gone. 

 There remain, however, vast areas of public land which can be made 

 available for homestead settlement, but only by reservoirs and main 

 line canals impracticable for private enterprise. The irrigation 

 works should be built by the national government. The lands re- 



