1904 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



461 



VIEW OF MISSOURI PACIFIC RAILROAD BRIDGE AT KANSAS CITY AFTER THE FLOOD. 



feet deep over the fields ; in still other 

 places great holes were gouged out and 

 lakes formed acres in extent. Of the 

 250,000 acres of remarkably fertile 

 lands, worth from $100 to $250 an acre, 

 which the valley contained, 10,000 acres 

 were completely destroyed for agricult- 

 ural purposes, 10,000 acres more were 

 damaged 50 per cent of their value, and 

 the whole area was greatly depreciated 

 in value owing to the general sense of 

 uncertainty as to the future. That 

 these fears for the future were well 

 founded the repetition of the disaster 

 makes sufficiently plain. 



But the condition of the citizens of 

 the valley is far from hopeless if they 

 will put into active and general opera- 

 tion plans for the protection and recla- 

 mation of their lands. The Bureau of 

 Forestry has devised systems of tree 

 planting for the river banks, the sand- 

 covered lands, and the deeply eroded 

 lands. The object of the first is to pre- 

 vent washing of the banks, to protect 

 the whole area from the full force of 

 floods, and in time of overflow to check 

 the tendency to gully and cut new chan- 

 nels. The last two systems of planting 

 are for ultimately reclaiming the now 

 destroyed lands, and making them pro- 



duce in the meantime a valuable wood 

 product while the work of reclamation 

 is going on. 



The sanded lands are now useless for 

 crops, but will grow cottonwood, which 

 twenty years hence will make valuable 

 saw-logs. In the meantime the trees will 

 be reclaiming the land for field crops. 

 This they will do partly by the fertilizing 

 effect of the decaying forest litter. But 

 should the flood waters return again the 

 timber would very likely be in a position 

 to render much greater service. Exam- 

 ination of the area affected a year ago 

 shows strikingly that where protective 

 growths of cottonwood checked the rush 

 of the current, the land beyond was gen- 

 erally covered, not with sand, but with 

 silt, and is of ten, if anything, more fertile 

 than before. With extensive planting of 

 forest trees another flood would undoubt- 

 edly bring back at once to fertility much 

 of the land which has now been made 

 barren, 



The lower part of the Kansas Valley 

 was devoted chiefly to the production of 

 potatoes. Crops of 300 to 400 bushels 

 per acre were not uncommon before the 

 flood. Thousands of acres of potato 

 fields were buried two to six feet be- 

 neath coarse river sand, causing the 



