American Forest Congress 65 



acres of land, then each acre of land must be assessed 

 thirty dollars, and that thirty dollars must be paid back 

 in ten annual installments of three dollars each. Mean- 

 while the fund is increasing, but every dollar of it must 

 be guarded and the engineers in charge of the work 

 must be business men and financial men as well, and 

 see that the expenditures they make are such that the 

 money will get back without undue hardship to the 

 people who will obtain that land and cultivate it. 



These great works belong to the National Govern- 

 ment, but when the distribution system is paid for in 

 the ten annual installments, it will be turned over to 

 the people who own the land and cultivate it and will 

 be operated by them very much as a school district is 

 operated, or any other public corporation or munici- 

 pality. During the time of construction and operation 

 of these works up to the period when they are paid for, 

 the engineers who have built them will see that they are 

 operated properly and will gradually pass the control 

 over to the communities until ultimately the community 

 will assume full control. By that time the future 

 owners will be educated to a true appreciation of the 

 great works and to a realization of what it means to 

 them to conserve the forests of the head waters. 



The organization which is carrying on that work 

 known as the Reclamation Service, has been created 

 under the Geological Survey in order to take advantage 

 of the good precedents and business-like ability of that 

 organization. All of us appreciate the enormous bene- 

 fit it is to have, the protection of the older organization 

 which has been in existence a quarter of a century and 

 which has been conducted without favoritism and with- 

 out reference to politics. 



Building up on that foundation and having the pro- 

 tection of good precedents and good methods, we are 



