THEODORE ROOSEVELT 



553 



principally in. the South, where the 

 farmers have been paying no attention 

 to the matters of fertilization or rota- 

 tion of crops, it has actually been dem- 

 onstrated that the soil of the United 

 States, as a whole, is gaining in fer- 

 tility. The outside limit of lands ca- 

 pable of cultivation in the United States 

 is twice the present area under cultiva- 

 tion. There is nothing to limit the pop- 

 ulation of the United States to twice, or 

 even ten times, its present number, and 

 as the farm crops are increasing much 

 more slowly than population, and as 

 there is an immediate limitation to the 

 acreage available, and practically no 

 limit to the possible population, and in- 

 asmuch as all the best lands are taken, 

 and those now available are more or less 

 uncertain in their value, the increase in 

 the yield per acre becomes a problem 

 which the Nation must solve, and that 

 at once. Over and above the lands pos- 

 sible for home-making, there are other 

 areas containing mineral, water, and 

 timber supply, which the Nation must 

 hold in its own possession and maintain 

 in efficient condition owing to the inti- 

 mate relations they sustain to the other 

 lands of the United States. But all 

 these lands, old and new, made and un- 

 made, are capable, under the new 

 science of agriculture, and under the 

 new idea of national conservation, of 

 being increased in their productive ca- 

 pacity manyfold. 



When Mr. Roosevelt looked out over 

 the broad domain of the United States, 

 he also looked ahead to the needs of the 

 future population of the United States. 

 If the founders of the country built for 

 the future, and for those generations 

 then unborn, one of which is ourselves, 

 and thereby earned our everlasting 

 gratitude, why should not present-day 

 statemanship lay scientific foundations 

 for making a greater people in the fu- 

 ture with a happier lot in life? Sev- 

 eral things were obvious to his intensely 

 practical mind. That they had not oc- 

 curred to any former President or any 

 former Congress, or, we may say, to 

 any former American statesman, was 

 no deterrent to his audacious dream. 

 He saw the vast possibilities in the 



land and its running water. He doubt- 

 less said to himself: "Why not take the 

 trouble to get ready for their highest 

 use the incomparable waterways of the 

 North American Continent, into the 

 very heart of which it is possible to 

 extend the coast-line and ocean ship- 

 ping? How much better that certain 

 billions of tons of fresh water, instead 

 of destroying farms, should make 

 farms ; instead of carrying away soil 

 should deposit soil ; instead of blocking 

 navigation should extend navigation ; 

 instead of destroying life should sup- 

 port life!" 



This was his secret. 



THE WATERWAY IDEA 



The Roosevelt waterways idea in- 

 volves a project no less imposing than 

 the fundamental rearrangement of the 

 New World. 



The cutting of the Isthmian Canal is 

 a geographical event of the first mag- 

 nitude and of first importance; while 

 the more useful, if less attractive, 

 scheme for the artificialization, the con- 

 trol and use of the Mississippi River 

 and its tributaries, and the coordination 

 of all the problems related thereto, pre- 

 sents a scheme in scientific government 

 as brilliant as anything of the kind ever 

 before presented to the human mind. 



The conception involves a project for 

 the artificialization, the control and use 

 under one great engineering scheme, of 

 not only the whole Mississippi River 

 system, with its 16,000 miles of navi- 

 gable deep waterways and countless un- 

 navigable tributaries ; but. connected 

 with the problems of this continental 

 artery called the Mississippi River, is 

 that of its own canalization and the 

 canalization of one of its own tribu- 

 taries, namely, the Illinois River, and 

 the deepening of the Chicago Drainage 

 Canal through to Lake Michigan. 



There are a few geological points of 

 some interest in connection with the 

 past and future of this scheme. Probably 

 before the waters of the upper Missis- 

 sippi River found their way into Hud- 

 son's Bay, the waters of the Great 

 Lakes, when the great glacier lay across 



