charge not announced. These projects, in widely 

 separated localities, entail a land charge prohibitive 

 to the frontier settlers to provide homes for those 

 for whom this work was believed to have been un- 

 dertaken. The pioneer settler who can pay, even in 

 ten annual instalments, from $3,500 to $4,000 for 

 eighty acres of land, in addition to the yearly fee 

 per acre, must have some other resources to aid 

 him. The work of irrigation would have been more 

 cheaply done if turned over to private enterprise 

 or committed to the several states within which 

 lie the lands to be reclaimed. This is not a criticism 

 upon any individual. It is merely one more proof 

 of the excessive cost of government work. 



Toward the conservation of our mineral resources 

 little can be done by federal action. The output is 

 determined not by the mine owner, but by the con- 

 sumer. The withdrawal of vast areas of supposed 

 coal lands tends to increase price by restricting the 

 area of possible supply. Nor can such deposits be 

 utilized eventually except under some such system 

 as is now employed. It is foolish to talk of leasing 

 coal lands in small quantities in order to prevent 

 monopoly. Mining must be carried on upon a large 

 enough scale to be commercially possible. The 

 lessee of a small area could not afford to instal the 

 necessary machinery and provide means of trans- 

 portation without charging for the product a pro- 

 hibitory price. Under such conditions the coal 

 would remain in the ground indefinitely. The peo- 

 ple of the West see Httle practical difference be- 

 tween a resource withheld entirely from use and a 

 resource dissipated or exhausted. They understand 

 by conservation the most economical development 

 and best care of resources. It is the onlv definition 



