1902. 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION. 



127 



agining of a later period of the world's 

 existence, when conditions shall have 

 been well rounded out, when rapid transit 

 shall have been reduced to a science far 

 beyond the railroad achievements of to- 

 day, when we shall beskinnning through 

 the air in ships, when living shall have 

 been reduced to an exact science, with 

 no waste, but with the utilization of 

 every product and of ever^^ particle. It 

 would be natural, looking ahead to this 

 time, when every resource would be fully 

 utilized, that all the waste water of the 

 West should be conserved and made to 

 produce crops. This was about as seri- 

 ously and as practically as people in 

 general took the question of the irriga- 

 tion of the desert. 



There has come a change. The east- 

 ern half of the country is beginning to 

 realize what the reclamation of the 

 great empire west of the Missouri River 

 would mean, and that it is a question of 

 the day. Newspapers and magazines 

 now publish many popular and interest- 

 ing illustrated articles showing the great 

 work which has already been done in 

 irrigation, even as a beginning, and the 

 magnificent results which would follow 

 the watering of the 100,000,000 acres 

 still susceptible of reclamation. The 

 figures which can describe these results 

 are large ones. Fift}' million people, it 

 is estimated, would occupy this western 

 empire, and $1,250,000,000 has been a 

 low^ estimate of its annual output. The 

 addition to the national wealth would 

 therefore be an enormous one. For 

 many years this part of the country 

 would depend almost exclusively upon 

 the eastern half of the United States for 

 its manufactured products, and the 

 market which it w^ould afford to our 

 manufacturing states would, of course, 

 be the best they could desire. 



This fact the press of the East has 

 been quick to emphasize. From one 

 cause or another the papers of the coun- 

 try those greatest of public educators 

 have come to consider the irrigation 

 subject as a legitimate news question. 

 The consequence is that more and more 

 is being written about it and more and 

 more people are learning of it. 



Most of the eastern papers have 

 adopted the broad view that the con- 



quest of our deserts is a great nationa 

 question ; that inasmuch as private 

 capital has about reached the end of its 

 endeavor, and that as the general gov- 

 ernment is the only party which can 

 properly treat it, it is fitting that Con- 

 gress should take up the problem and 

 proceed to the reclamation of the arid 

 lands in a systematic manner, reserv- 

 ing the lands for the use of actual set- 

 tlers and home-builders, in small tracts 

 sufficient for them to make a living 

 from for themselves and for their fam- 

 ilies. 



Some few of the papers of the East 

 and of the Mississippi Valley have as- 

 sumed the position that these lands 

 should not be opened and brought into 

 competition with eastern farms ; but 

 this is very generally condemned as a 

 narrow view. As well, it is answered, 

 might the original thirteen states have 

 decidedthat no additional territory should 

 be developed because it would come into 

 competition with them. Moreover, this 

 claim is born in ignorance, for the irri- 

 gating of these western areas would not 

 compete with the eastern farming inter- 

 ests, but, on the other hand, w^ould 

 benefit them. In the first place, this 

 opening of western lands w^ould be a 

 slow and gradual process, covering a 

 period of man}- years. In the next 

 place, the products of this region would 

 not compete with the products of the 

 eastern farmer. Most of them would be 

 consumed in the West itself by the great 

 mining and industrial interests which 

 would be developed for its mining in- 

 dustry is yet in a state of infanc}' while 

 any surplus which might be produced 

 would naturally go to meet the anxious 

 demands of the Orient. Lastly, the de- 

 mand of the West upon the manufactur- 

 ing East would be so great that eastern 

 factories, doubled in capacity, would 

 furnish, with their added thousands of 

 employes, a vastly increased market for 

 the eastern farmer. 



Thus the country as a whole begins 

 to know something of the possibilities 

 of the reclamation of the barren wastes, 

 the marriage of the thirsty lands to the 

 flood waters, the conquest of this inland 

 empire, the subjugation of the desert, 

 the annexation of arid America. 



