NEWS AND NOTES 



119 



is the only way to accomplish the de- 

 sired result. Congress will not act 

 except under the pressure of public 

 opinion, and every section which has 

 a direct interest in the inland water- 

 ways program should make its voice 

 heard and its influence felt in this con- 

 nection. 



the United States in planning and support- 

 ing the movement for reclamation of arid 

 areas and for the conservation of natural 

 resources. The years 1910 or 1911 are men- 

 tioned, instead of 1909, because it would be 

 impossible to do the preliminary work nec- 

 essary and secure the acceptance of foreign 

 governments prior to 1910." 



Pan-American Irrigation Congress Suggested 



IN THE course of his address on 

 irrigation in Latin America at the 

 National Irrigation Congress at Al- 

 buquerque, last October, Hon. John 

 Barrett, Director of International Bu- 

 reau of American Republics, urged that 

 Central and South America be included 

 in the future activities of the Congress. 

 Along this line Mr. Barrett said : 



"I want to make a recommendation which 

 may be worthy of your careful consideration. 

 It is that the National Irrigation Congress 

 meeting here in Albuquerque, New Mexico, 

 in 1908, take steps toward holding two or 

 three years from now, or at some date in 

 1910 or 1911, a great International Pan- 

 American Irrigation Congress, to which each 

 one of the twenty Latin American republics 

 will be invited to send delegates and ex- 

 perts. 



"Such a proposition carefully directed 

 would surely meet with favorable response 

 by our sister nations and would be the means 

 of vastly benefiting, by mutual exchange of 

 views and reports, irrigation undertakings 

 in all America. It would be highly advisa- 

 ble that a committee should be appointed by 

 this convention to consider the carrying out 

 of this plan and to ask the National Con- 

 gress at Washington to make a reasonable 

 appropriation to cover the participation of 

 the United States. 



"Such appropriation would give a gov- 

 ernment sanction and require the appoint- 

 ment of government delegates, which would 

 insure the actual interest and participation 

 of the other American republics. As a 

 special corollary to this main proposition, I 

 would suggest further, as a step of interna- 

 tional courtesy which would please not only 

 our great and prosperous neighbor, Mexico, 

 but all Latin America, that the national and 

 private irrigation interests of Mexico be 

 particularly invited to cooperate with those 

 of the United States in preparing for, and 

 extending invitations to, such a Pan-Ameri- 

 can gathering. 



"With this idea, moreover, goes the highly 

 tempting possibility of holding this interna- 

 tional congress in Mexico City, the great 

 capital of a nation which is second only to 



Miami and Erie Waterways to Become Ship 

 Canal 



THE work of converting the Miami 

 & Erie Canal, running northward 

 from Cincinnati across the State of 

 Ohio, into a ship canal has progressed 

 so far that Charles Nauts, Superintend- 

 ent of the Northern Division, states that 

 by next May the first fifty miles of the 

 canal from Cincinnati north will be 

 ready for use by craft of 150 tons ca- 

 pacity. Mr. Nauts states that the new 

 locks in course of preparation are ninety 

 feet in length with a sixteen-foot water- 

 way. It is not proposed to widen the 

 channel materially, but it is being made 

 considerably deeper. It is also an- 

 nounced that the work of enlarging the 

 canal throughout its entire length will 

 be prosecuted vigorously, and, while no 

 definite dates are set, it is believed that 

 within the next five or six years the 

 canal will be in operation from the 

 Lakes to the Ohio River. 



Mr. Pinchot and the Farmers 



IN A letter written to Hon. Frank 

 C. Goudy, president of the Sixteenth 

 Annual Irrigation Congress, held at 

 Albuquerque, N. Mex., in September, 

 Hon. Gifford Pinchot, United States 

 Forester, after expressing his regret at 

 being unable to attend the congress, 

 added some expressions of opinion in 

 regard to the American farmer, irriga- 

 tion, or otherwise. Mr. Pinchot has 

 for so long been believed, by certain 

 elements in the West, to know nothing 

 about anything but forestry and, ac- 

 cording to Field and Farm, Judge D. C. 

 Beaman and others, not much about 

 that that it will come as a surprise to 



