208 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



April 



and places them in the hands of the 

 Secretary of the Interior for drainage 

 construction, as in the case of the irri- 

 gation reclamation act. As under that 

 act, the fund becomes a revolving one, 

 the amounts by which the Govern- 

 ment is repaid for the cost of drain- 

 age construction, going back into the 

 fund to be used in future projects. 



In the account published in FOR- 

 ESTRY AND IRRIGATION* of the re- 

 cent National Drainage Congress 

 at Baltimore, the general statis- 



ornia. The report also shows that the 

 Reclamation Service is conducting 

 actual drainage construction on a 

 large scale in connection with a num- 

 ber of the Western irrigation projects, 

 so that, as Secretary Garfield points 

 out. these two bureaus of his depart- 

 ment are fully prepared to prosecute 

 any further new drainage work, either 

 surveys and plans, or construction. 



Many of the best friends of this 

 proposed development of a great la- 

 tent resource of the Nation, express 



Not all of this work is in remote regions Here are drainage ditches on 

 Staten Island, New York Constructed in connection with mosquito 

 war, but incidentally the land grows paying crcps cf hay 



tics regarding the areas of swamp 

 lands were stated ; but since then a re- 

 port has been transmitted to Congress 

 by the Secretary of the Interior, giv- 

 ing some further interesting informa- 

 tion, and showing that the Geological 

 Survey has made a preliminary inves- 

 tigation and survey of large areas of 

 swamp lands, and is now conducting 

 a number of special drainage surveys, 

 notably in Minnesota, Mississippi, and 

 the great Sacramento Valley of Calif- 



grave doubt as to the constitutionality 

 of the drainage by the Government of 

 land in private ownership. There 

 would appear to be no real difference 

 between improving either by irriga- 

 tion or drainage a tract of land which 

 is today Government land, but when 

 reclaimed tomorrow will be home- 

 steaded and become privately owned, 

 and reclaiming land which was home- 

 steaded yesterday, but which must re- 

 main undeveloped unless reclaimed. 



