THE FARMER OF TO-MORROW 



where it will become a public function to divert 

 the excessive rainfall of the East to the arid 

 regions of the West by means of grand trans- 

 continental canals? The surplus water of the 

 77,000,000 acres of swamp alone would be suf- 

 ficient to restore an equal area in the Great 

 Plains to its prehistoric fertility. And the 

 waters of the Mississippi River floods, which 

 to-day serve no purpose, would, properly di- 

 verted by an engineering work not thought 

 possible at the present day, bring peace and 

 plenty to an empire in the Far West as big 

 as France. 



To straighten out the tortuous path of the 

 great Mississippi, and confine the riotous 

 spring flood within the walls of a great air-line 

 canal, is already being considered as a possible 

 and highly desirable undertaking by engineers. 

 To impound the surplus water and convey it 

 on a trans-continental journey, raising it stage 

 by stage by means of pumps (part of whose 

 power is furnished by the same water falling 

 in other stages of the same canal), is no 

 greater undertaking than the Panama Canal. 

 Take the map and draw a line along the 

 coastal plain from the swamp regions of 

 northern Louisiana (where the black alluvium 



