400 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



September 



an adequate supply of water, a farm 

 of five acres in some parts of the arid 

 West, or of forty acres elsewhere, is 

 as large as may be successfully tilled 

 by one family. When, therefore, a 

 man attempts to hold 160 acres of land 

 completely irrigated by Government 

 work, he is preventing others from ac- 

 quiring a home, and is actually keep- 

 ing down the population of the State. 



Speculation in lands reclaimed by 

 the Government must be checked at 

 whatever cost. The object of the Re- 

 clamation Act is not to make money, 

 but to make homes. Therefore, the 

 requirement of the Reclamation Act 

 that the size of the farm unit shall be 

 limited in each region to the area 

 which will comfortably support one 

 family must be enforced in letter and 

 in spirit. This does not mean that the 

 farm unit shall be sufficient for the 

 present family with its future grown 

 children and grandchildren, but rather 

 that during the ten years of payment 

 the area assigned for each family shall 

 be sufficient to support it. When once 

 the farms have been fully tilled by 

 freeholders, little danger of land mo- 

 nopoly will remain. 



This great meeting of practical irri- 

 gators should give particular atten- 

 tion to this problem and others of the 

 same kind. You should, and I doubt 

 not that you will, give your effectual 

 support to the officers of the Govern- 

 ment in making the Reclamation law 

 successful in all respects, and particu- 

 larly in getting back the original in- 

 vestment, so that the money may be 

 used again and again in the completion 

 of other projects and thus in the gen- 

 eral extension of prosperity in the 

 West. Until it has been proved that 

 this great investment of $40,000,000 

 in irrigation made by the Government 

 will be returning to the Treasury, it 

 is useless to expect that the people of 

 the country will consider direct appro- 

 priations for the work. Let us give 

 the Reclamation Service a chance to 

 utilize the present investment a second 

 time before discussing such increase. 

 I look forward with great confidence 

 to the result. 



By the side of the Reclamation Ser- 



vice there has grown up another ser- 

 vice of not less interest and value to 

 you of the West. This is the Forest 

 Service, which was created when the 

 charge of the forest reserves was 

 transferred from the Interior Depart- 

 ment to the Department of Agricul- 

 ture. The forest policy of the Ad- 

 ministration, which the Forest Service 

 is engaged in carrying out, is based, 

 as I have often said, on the vigorous 

 purpose to makt every resouce of the 

 forest reserves contribute in the high- 

 est degree to the permanent prosperity 

 of the people who depend upon them. 

 If ever the time should come when 

 the western forests are destroyed, 

 there will disappear with them the 

 prosperity of the stockman, the miner, 

 the lumberman, and the railroads, and, 

 most important of all, the small ranch- 

 man who cultivates his own land. I 

 know that you are with me in the in- 

 tention to preserve the timber, the wa- 

 ter, and the grass by using them fully, 

 but wisely and conservatively. We 

 propose to do this through the freest 

 and most cordial cooperation between 

 the Government and every man who 

 is in sympathy with this policy, the 

 wisdom of which no man who knows 

 the facts can for a moment doubt. 



It is now less than two years since 

 the Forest Service was established. It 

 had a great task before it to create 

 or reorganize the Service on a hun- 

 dred forest reserves and to ascertain 

 and meet the very different local con- 

 ditions and local needs all over the 

 West. This task is not finished, and 

 of course it could not have been fin- 

 ished in so short a time. But the work 

 has been carried forward with energy 

 and intelligence, and enough has been 

 done to show how our forest policy is 

 working out. 



The result of first importance to you 

 as irrigators is this : The Forest Ser- 

 vice has proved that forest fires can 

 be controlled, by controlling them. 

 Only one-tenth of 1 per cent of the 

 area of the forest reserves was burned 

 over in 1905. This achievement was 

 due both to the Forest Service and to 

 the effective assistance of settlers and 

 others in and near the reserves. Every- 



