690 CONSERVATION 



is well to note that irrigation has been when Congress appropriated 200 for 

 practised in Egypt, India, Mexico, and the purpose, which the Government 

 many other lands for long periods of took three years to spend ! Within 

 time. It is a proud heritage for any seven months after the recommendation 

 race that wherever their flag has gone, of President Roosevelt, Congress en- 

 there, constructive and scientific work acted the most beneficent piece of 

 has arisen for the benefit of the peo- public-land legislation which has be- 

 ples who had, from time immemorial, come a law since Abraham Lincoln 

 been subject to flood, drought, famine, signed his Homestead Act in 1862. 

 plague. When was there ever so pro- Eleven days after the measure became a 

 pitious a clay for Egypt and the Sou- law, recommendations were made for 

 dan as when the British flag was planted the withdrawal from entry of areas in 

 there, with British engineering skill and six localities to prevent speculative fil- 

 British millions of pounds sterling? ings on them, pending an act. 

 The dams and canals, channels and bar- On the third anniversary of the 

 rages already finished, with the new passage of the Reclamation Act, on 

 ones planned, have brought a prosperity June 17, 1905, and within three years 

 and a peace to the North of Africa and seven months of the first presenta- 

 which never has been seen, and never tion to Congress by a Presidential mes- 

 has been possible in all the weary mil- sage of any plan for the national policy 

 lenniums which have dragged over its of the reclamation of arid lands by irri- 

 thirsty wastes. Though there has been gation, water was turned on to 50,000 

 irrigation in India from time immemo- of the thirsty acres of Nevada, the first 

 rial, it has been on a small scale. No section of this national project to be 

 vast projects were ever undertaken un- completed. This is known as the 

 til the British occupation, such, for ex- "Carson" project. A very interesting 

 ample, as the Chenab Canal, which ir- incident in connection with the digging 

 rigates 2,000,000 acres, or two-fifths as of the ditches of this project illustrates 

 large an area as all of cultivable Egypt the value of the Hydrologic Survey. 

 a canal with six times the discharge of This irregular tract comprises a flat 

 the Thames at Teddington. Thirteen desert, which lay in the line of the im- 

 millions of acres of the 44,000,000 acres migrants' trail to California about the 

 under irrigation in India are watered time of the gold discovery. There were 

 from wells, but the vast government here forty miles of country where never 

 undertakings have become the main a drop of water was to be found. It was 

 insurance against the recurrence of several, and sometimes many days' jour- 

 famine, that dread visitant in this over- ney, with horses or mules or oxen, and 

 crowded land. every drop of water used had to be car- 



The first Presidential message to ried with them. Not all the immigrants 



Congress recommending Government knew this, and the consequence was that 



aid to agriculture was that of George hundreds perished, with thousands of 



Washington, in 1796, himself a member animals, and very often the only monu- 



of the first agricultural society ever or- merit left to mark the spot where some 



ganized in the United States. He rec- father, mother, son, or daughter had 



ommended "a national board to en- perished and was left six feet deep in 



courage and assist agriculture * * this desert soil was an old gun-barrel 



by stimulating private enterprise and or steel ramrod to mark the place, 



experiment." Three wagon-loads of such pathetic 



The first Presidential message rec- mementoes were recovered from the 



ommending aid to irrigation and the digging of the main ditch. But the 



national control of water-supply was Hydrologic Survey has ascertained the 



the first message to Congress of Presi- fact by this time that this entire rc- 



dent Roosevelt, December 3, 1901. gion, in fact almost the whole of Ne- 



Legislation waited on Washington's vada, contains vast quantities of under- 



recommendation forty-five years later, ground water, and had any one out of 



