376 UNITED STATES FOREST POLICY 



unlikely that many "homes" will ever be established under this act, 

 and the government will lose control over one more resource.* 



A RATIONAL POLICY FOR THE FUTURE 

 It is not yet too late to adopt a rational policy with regard to the 

 remainder of these natural resources. The first step should be a care- 

 ful classification of all public lands, and only such as are fit for agri- 

 culture should be alienated. There are large areas of coal, oil, and 

 phosphate lands in the West, some of them already withdrawn. All 

 these should be permanently reserved, as far as the mineral deposits 

 are concerned. Where the soil is fit for farming, it should be turned 

 over to settlers, with a reservation to the government of everything 

 below the surface.^ 



The Federal government should retain control of the swamp lands 

 and irrigation lands which have not already been alienated. It has 

 been demonstrated that irrigation is in some cases a work for the 

 Federal government, and this is true also of drainage. The engineer- 

 ing problerris involved are often interstate in their scope, and entirely 

 too large for individual enterprise. Furthermore, even if private 

 individuals or corporations were financially strong enough to under- 

 take large irrigation or drainage enterprises, it would not be wise to 

 give them control over thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of 

 acres of land occupied by tenants. Just how much control the Fed- 

 eral government should retain over lands which have been irrigated 

 or drained, is not a question for this treatise ; but the work of getting 

 the land ready for settlement is in many cases a work for the govern- 

 ment, and probably it should always retain some control over such 

 lands. 



If the need were for immediate development and exploitation of the 

 resources of the public domain, there might be a question as to the 

 wisdom of such sweeping application of the reservation policy; but 

 the need is not for rapid settlement and rapid exploitation. Exploita- 

 tion of our resources has proceeded with sufficient rapidity. The need 

 is for greater sanity and intelligence and foresight than we have 

 displayed in the past. The United States is gradually developing the 



4 Stat. 39, 862. 



5 Bui. 537, U. S. Geological Survey. 



