CHAPTER IV 



THE DRY LANDS AND THE 

 FORESTS 



So much for land with too much water. 

 Now for land with not enough water. A 

 recent survey of the arid and semi-arid lands 

 of the United States, conducted by the fed- 

 eral government, placed the total at 1,160,- 

 000,000 acres. Compare this with the total 

 land area of the United States, 1,937,000,000. 

 View this comparison in the light of the knowl- 

 edge that the prosperity of our great food 

 reservoir in the Middle West depends on a 

 rainfall of not less than thirty-five inches of 

 rain a year. 



Arid land means less than ten inches a year. 

 Semi-arid land means less than twenty. Our 

 dominions shrink considerably when we put 

 the foot-rule of available rain-fall on them, 

 regardless of whether or not the nature of the 

 soil and the topography permit agriculture. 



