1 903 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



355 



would so reduce the flow of the Mis- 

 souri River before it reaches St Louis 

 as to keep not only it, but the Missis- 

 sippi, within safe bounds. 



Of course, the flood sufferer who sees 

 a great yellow surge going by St Louis 

 six or seven feet higher than the dan- 

 ger line may well express some skepti- 

 cism as to the possibility of the govern- 

 ment or an}* other agency constructing 

 reservoirs sufficiently gigantic to im- 

 pound all this excess of water. 



But the reservoirs themselves would 

 be only a part of the storage system. 

 Of course the construction of such res- 

 ervoirs would mean that the waters safe 

 in them would be used for irrigation, 

 and the official surveys indicate that 

 something over 30,000,000 acres is the 

 amount of land which can be irrigated 

 from the water supply running eastward 

 from the Rocky Mountains. Had such 

 a system been in operation the June 

 floods would have been diverted, first, 

 into the great storage reservoirs neces- 

 sary to irrigate this land ; second, into 

 the hundreds, if not thousands, of miles 

 of canals, ditches, and laterals necessary 

 for its irrigation ; and, third, under the 

 land itself. The stored water would 

 not be used until the dry months of 

 July and August, when the Missouri 

 and its tributaries are but shallow, me- 

 andering streams ; but during May and 

 June the watering o-f this great area of 



land soaking it to the depth of a couple 

 of feet would be done directly from the 

 streams themselves, or rather from the 

 great canal system which would be nec- 

 essary to carry the water inland from 

 the rivers. This immense body of cul- 

 tivated land would therefore act as a 

 sort of sponge, and the effect would be 

 to reduce the flow of the Missouri as 

 though a vast obstruction had been 

 thrown across its bed and its water 

 flooded over all this land. 



The Mississippi is able to take care 

 of its own floods or of the floods of any 

 one of its tributaries, but when all the 

 rivers which flow into it go on the ram- 

 page, death and destruction must be the 

 outcome. The equalization of the flow 

 of the Missouri River would in a great 

 measure mean the control of the Missis- 

 sippi and a greatly decreased annual ex- 

 penditure for flood protection under the 

 River and Harbor Bill. 



The carrying out of such a govern- 

 ment policy would not only palliate the 

 floods, but furnish homes for hundreds 

 of thousands of prosperous farmers and 

 result in vast good to the entire nation. 

 We would have a dense farming popu- 

 lation, occupying small individual areas 

 of land and contributing to the pros- 

 perity and growth of hundreds of towns 

 and cities, where now the country is 

 in many places only very sparsely set- 

 tled. 



PROBLEMS OF THE YAZOO DELTA. 



FORESTRY, IRRIGATION, AND DRAINAGE ARE 

 ALL NEEDED FOR THE HIGHEST DEVELOP- 

 MENT OF THIS REMARKABLY FERTILE REGION. 



THE Yazoo Delta lies in the north- 

 western part of Mississippi and, 

 broadly speaking, embraces a stretch of 

 country along the Mississippi River 

 from Memphis, Tenn., to Vicksburg, 

 Miss. Its eastern boundary is formed 

 by the Tallahatchie and Yazoo Rivers, 

 or, more properly, by a range of bluffs 

 which extend in an arc away from the 

 Mississippi, touching that stream at the 

 two cities mentioned. Strictly speak- 

 ing, the delta lies at the lower end of 



the Yazoo River, and is formed by the 

 lands enclosed between that stream and 

 the greater one which gives the state 

 its name. This is a region of winding 

 bayous and slow-moving streams, which 

 interlace and intersect, forming a net- 

 work of waterways and making islands 

 of almost all tracts of country in the 

 region. In fact, the whole delta area 

 is an island, because bayous at the 

 northern end connect with the Talla- 

 hatchie, drawing their waters from the 



