THE IRKIGATION AGE. 



153 



THE RECLAMATION OF OUR ARID LANDS. 



BY MISS MAY ROGERS, ELGIN, ILL. 



In this vast country of ours, with an area of more 

 than three million square miles, and a population of 

 almost seventy-seven million people, there are one million 

 three hundred thousand square miles of land unfit for 

 use, a territory which is over twice as large as the areas 

 of Great Britain, Germany and France combined. A 

 very large part of this land it is possible to reclaim, if 



pied ! The little state of Rhode Island has 343 people 

 to every square mile, while the large Nevada, out in the 

 Y^ est, has only one person to every two square miles. 



Now the question arises, How is this land to be 

 made productive? There are many answers to this. 

 The first and perhaps most important is irrigation. 

 This land is not absolutely devoid of water. There are 

 rivers here just the same as in other parts, and there is 

 some rainfall. If only the water would be forced 

 through ditches into reservoirs and dammed, it could 

 be spread over the parts farther distant from the rivers. 



Five-Ycar-Old Lombard Plum Tree near Finita, Colo., on Denver & Rio Grande Railway. 



only the right means can be used. How many more 

 people could live in this country if only this land could 

 be made available! President Eoosevelt said in his 

 first message to Congress: "The western half of the 

 United States would sustain a population greater than 

 that of our whole country today if the waters that now 

 run to waste were saved and used for irrigation." 



How much less crowded our eastern states would 

 have to be if only this land in the West could be occu- 



The one hundredth meridian divides the United 

 States from north to south into two equal parts. The 

 eastern half is humid; the western is made up of vast 

 plains, deserts and mountains. Nearly all except along 

 the rivers or on the seacoast is either arid or semi-arid. 

 Yet this despised section is rapidly gaining the title of 

 "The Better Half of the United .States." With irriga- 

 tion it can be made from twenty-five to one hundred 

 per cent more fertile than the East. Seven millions five 



