140 PRINCIPLES OF RURAL ECONOMICS 



obstacles to transportation, and it is difficult to tell whether they 

 produce enough timber to compensate for these disadvantages, 

 that is to say, whether they are not worse than useless. Drained 

 and reduced to cultivation, they would support a population at 

 least twice as large as that of the United States at the time of 

 the adoption of the Constitution. Allowing 40 acres to a family, 

 80,000,000 acres would support 2,000,000 families. Allowing 

 5 persons to a family, this would make a population of 10,000- 

 ooo. Seeing that such lands would be very productive, and 

 that most of them would be very accessible to the great centers 

 of population, 40 acres to the family does not seem too small 

 an allotment. 



An undertaking of this magnitude can scarcely be carried 

 out advantageously by private enterprise. To be done efficiently 

 it must be done on a large and comprehensive scale, with no 

 regard for private or even state boundaries ; that is to say, the 

 draining of a great swamp must be undertaken as a systematic 

 whole or as a single great enterprise, rather than piecemeal as 

 a multitude of individual enterprises, with endless duplications, 

 conflicting interests, and other forms of wasted energy. This 

 points clearly to the federal government, in cooperation with 

 the state governments, as the proper authority for the carrying 

 out of so vast an undertaking. The possibilities which such an 

 undertaking promises, the great increase in national wealth which 

 would result, and the vast population which could be supported 

 on that wealth, ought to appeal to any constructive statesman 

 with a vision of empire. The cost of such an undertaking would, 

 of course, be enormous. It would be difficult to estimate how 

 great, but it is said to be no greater than that of ten first-class 

 battleships ; and we should then have the land to show for our 

 expenditure. 



The example of Holland. The experience of Holland may 

 serve as an example of this kind of enterprise. As is well 



