WATERS 



x^ 



- 



SOILS 



AND 



Vol. 



OCTOBER, 1909 



No. 10 



SEVENTEENTH NATIONAL IRRIGATION 



CONGRESS 



OF ALL the sessions of the Na- 

 tional Irrigation Congress, the 

 seventeenth, that, namely, at 

 Spokane, Wash., was the most notable. 

 The attendance outnumbered that of 

 any previous session, and the enter- 

 tainment provided for the delegates and 

 visitors was in every way worthy of 

 the hosts. The Congress maintained 

 its interest throughout a period of five 

 days, ending on the afternoon of Au- 

 gust 13. But the feature of the Con- 

 gress was the seriousness and scope of 

 the addresses and of the resultant dis- 

 cussions. These were national in char- 

 acter ; furthermore, they were given an 

 international aspect by the presence of 

 accredited representatives from four- 

 teen foreign countries, most of whom 

 read papers or participated in the de- 

 bates. 



The cardinal purposes of the Na- 

 tional Irrigation Congress, which Theo- 

 dore Roosevelt, while President of the 

 United States, recognized as the most 

 influential unofficial body in this coun- 

 try, are to save the forests, store the 

 floods, reclaim the deserts, and make 



homes on the land for this and future 

 generations. The chief object of the 

 Spokane sessions, where more than 

 2,000 delegates were assembled, was to 

 demonstrate to the West the wonderful 

 development through reclamation of 

 arid and swamp lands, forestry, deep 

 waterways, good roads, and home 

 building, and to show to the East the 

 economic importance to the whole coun- 

 try of this work and of the marvelous 

 achievements yet to be realized. 



From beginning to end, the Conven- 

 tion was a success. Every word ut- 

 tered in the propaganda for homes had 

 a permanent value, and the speakers 

 added substantially to the purpose and 

 ideals, not only of the Northwest, yet 

 in the making, but of the country as a 

 whole. 



Many of the ablest men in the coun- 



j 



try gave their best thoughts to their 

 papers with two aims in view : First, 

 to aid in unifying the development 

 agencies of the Nation, and second, to 

 add to the informative literature of 

 this national, coordinated enterprise. 

 The Congress represented in its ranks 



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