8 4 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



February 



tion representing the commercial inter- 

 ests of the whole country, to take up for 

 serious consideration and to recommend 

 as a national policy the construction of 

 national reservoirs for the storage of 

 water for irrigation and other purposes. 

 At the 28th annual meeting of the 

 National Board of Trade in December, 



1897, after a very interesting general 

 discussion of the subject, the following 

 resolution was adopted : 



" IV/ieteas, the matter of using a sys- 

 tem of artificial irrigation for secur- 

 ing crops and making available arid 

 and unproductive lands has assumed a 

 national character, and is of vital inter- 

 est to every section of our common 

 country, opening, as it does, settlement 

 and homes for millions of people an 

 area equal to one-third of the United 

 States ; and as the storage of water 

 necessary for this purpose involves the 

 question of injury or benefit to navi- 

 gable streams, it is 



"Resolved, by the National Board of 

 Trade, That while it looks with favor 

 upon a system which promises so much 

 for the future increased productiveness 

 of our country, we recommend Congress 

 to enact measures which shall look to the 

 preservation of the navigable streams 

 of the country, and which shall also 

 provide for the supervision and direc- 

 tion of all irrigation enterprises in the 

 hands of the United States authorities, 

 where such work is undertaken upon 

 waterways affecting interstate naviga- 

 tion." 



And a Committee on Irrigation was 

 appointed, with the following mem- 

 bers : 



George H. Anderson, chairman, Pitts- 

 burg; Wm. B. Ebersole, Cincinnati; 

 E. O. Stannard, St. Louis; B. A. Eck- 

 hart, Chicago; J. H. Lafaye, New Or- 

 leans. 



At the 29th annual meeting of the 

 National Board of Trade in December, 



1898, the report of the Committee on 

 Irrigation and Storage of Flood Waters 

 was presented and read to the board by 

 Mr. George H. Anderson, of Pittsburg, 

 the chairman of the committee, and 

 was accompanied by a comprehensive 

 engineer's report on the subject, made 

 by Mr. J. P. Frizell, of Boston. 



The foregoing reports, with the dis- 

 cussion thereon and the resolution 

 adopted, appear in the proceedings of 

 the 29th annual meeting of the National 

 Board of Trade, pages 60 to 76, and are 

 immediately followed by comprehen- 

 sive resolutions for the preservation of 

 the forests as sources of supply for for- 

 est products, and for the favorable in- 

 fluence of forest lands on climatic con- 

 ditions affecting the sanitary welfare 

 and the water supply of the country. 



We feel that it is a matter upon which 

 the National Board of Trade may well 

 be congratulated that it should at this 

 early date have been instrumental in 

 calling the attention of the country to 

 these two great national questions which 

 have since had such a development. 



As the campaign for reservoirs pro- 

 gressed it became each year more man- 

 ifest that the foundation upon which a 

 national policy of water storage must 

 be based was the adoption of and faith- 

 ful adherence to a public land policy 

 under which the remaining public lands 

 should be reserved for actual settlers 

 only. 



This point was strongly brought out 

 in the report of the standing committee 

 and the resolutions of this board, at its 

 32d annual session in January, 1902. 



In that report, on page 160 of the 

 proceedings of that meeting, it was said : 



" Two essentials, however, lie at the 

 foundation : 



"First. The preservation of the 

 forests, which are the sources of the 

 water supplies in the arid region ; and 



"Second. The reservation of the 

 land for actual settlers under the Home- 

 stead Act. 



' Trade and commerce will increase 

 as population increases, and our whole 

 land policy should be framed to pre- 

 serve the public lands for those who 

 will build homes upon them. This is 

 of the most vital importance." 



Among the resolutions then adopted 

 was the following : 



' Resolved, That all lands under said 

 system should be reserved for actual 

 settlers, under the Homestead Act, and 

 that neither the public lands nor the 

 control of their reclamation should in 

 any way be surrendered to the states ; 



