GOVERNMENT CONTROL OF THE FORESTS. 101 



cubic feet of water. He further estimates that this would add an average 

 of 2,000 cubic feet of volume to the Red River at Grand Forks in low 

 water, giving a navigable draft of 5% feet below this city to the boundary 

 line. 



THE WEIGHTIER QUESTION. 



The object these gentlemen have in view is the navigation of the 

 waters mentioned. But a weightier question arises whether the reservoir 

 and canal system proposed can also be applied to irrigation; probably not, 

 if navigation only is to be promoted, for there might not be water enough 

 to go round. But the interests of agriculture, which includes forestry as 

 its prime factor, takes the precedence of navigation. Were the reservoir 

 system extended as Major Jones suggests, and used mainly to head a vast 

 irrigation system, under right forestation of the spring lands, it would pay 

 a hundred fold more to the people than navigation at its most prosperous 

 tides of commerce. There is no call for such navigation unless our crops 

 warrant it. 



WHAT CAN BE DONE PRACTICALLY. 



As demonstrated in this report, without economic forest management 

 economic water management is impossible. If the state would have water 

 supply, the wild and waste territory at the sources of our great water sys- 

 tems must be densely forested for a perpetual cover. Practical manage- 

 ment of water implies arrangement for water drainage. Then irrigation 

 becomes as beneficially applicable to well-watered as to dry and arid 

 regions. In all countries where scientific irrigation is operative, it is 

 found to be far more satisfactory than irregular rainfall, even if ample, 

 whose mechanical action in falling compacts the ground and impedes per- 

 colation. Not so with irrigational water; it can be applied when needed, 

 on the surface in gentle flow, or among the roots by underground piping, 

 by which also provision is made for safe escape of surplus. 



Up to this date the chain of reservoirs is circumscribed to the waters of 

 the Mississippi. The national government can be influenced to extend 

 them to the headlands of the St. Croix and St. Louis rivers and lakes in 

 those regions, drawing such waters eastward and southward, and extend 

 them also so as to more closely interlink and economize all the lake waters 

 of the park region, and, as proposed by Major Jones, to locate a great 

 reservoir in Red Lake, with which to supply the Red River Valley. In- 

 deed, the reservoir system could be practically applied and utilized over 

 the southern portion of the state with equal facility. 



Consider for a moment what can be done in perhaps the most difficult 

 part of Minnesota. Suppose a suitable dam be placed at the mouth of 

 Otter Tail River, as suggested by Major Jones, to supply water for the 

 southern balance of the Red River Valley, and thence farther south 

 wherever feasible; for this object another dam be placed at the head of 

 Traverse Lake, another at the foot of Big Stone Lake, and so down at all 

 the principal falls of the Minnesota River, and next water-wheels at all 

 these dams, with other proper machinery, for lifting and distributing the 



