274 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



velopment, the only possible agency through which 

 drainage work can be planned and constructed in a 

 broad or modern principle, without the complications 

 arising from divided ownership, is the federal govern- 

 ment. Realizing this, the Flint general drainage bill 

 was prepared, introduced and favorably reported upon 

 by the public lands committee of the United States 

 Senate. It is safe to assume that favorable legislation 

 will eventually follow. It will take a form analogous 

 to that under which a similar problem of reclamation 

 by irrigation has been worked out in recent years by 

 the reclamation service of the United States. 



Think of what undrained lands mean to the coun- 

 try. It means that w'.iere these lands prevail is a 

 dreary uninhabitable waste; even the animals scorn 

 and avoid them. The only inhabitants of such areas are 

 the lizard, the tadpole and the frog. The word drear 

 may be seen in striking characters by the observer, writ- 

 ten on every inch of their surface. They are shunned 

 alike by saint and sinner. Even the wild beasts of the 

 forest will not live in such places. The elements of 

 surpassing fertility are there, also the elements of pro- 

 ducing power; nitrogen, phosphoric acid and potash 

 and even lime are there in ample supply. And water, 

 so essential to the growth of plant life is also there, but 

 it is there in superabundance; it is there to the extent 

 of neutralizing all the growth that would otherwise 

 be obtained from the elements named, if these were not 

 smothered beneath a superabundance of water. 



The drainage of these swamps and overflowed lands 

 means simply the readjustment of these elements to 

 one another, and that readjustment makes the difference 

 between a land inhabited by lizards and overspread with 

 malaria and one filled with happy homes, where children 

 play in the doorvard, happy as the day is long. Every 

 acre of land reclaimed from watery saturation is vir- 

 tually an acre to the producing area of the country. 

 While undrained, such land is of no more account than 

 if it were at the bottom of the sea, but the moment it 

 is drained it becomes a source of revenue to the state. 



Enough has already been stated to show what an 

 important contribution to the national wealth of this 

 country must result from the drainage of swamp lands. 

 It is a matter of sufficient importance to give national 

 interest to the question as to how this work may be best 

 accomplished. In many of the districts like the Ever- 

 glades, and the coast country of the Carolinas, the areas 

 are so vast, and the land in its present condition, that 

 it will be years, if at all, before the owners of the land 

 can take up and carry out this work. The best informed 

 believe that the federal government must take the di- 

 rection of this work, provide funds and then let the 

 owners of the land repay this after the lands have been 

 put in condition to be settled and cultivated. This 

 policy has been carried out by a number of European 

 countries in the reclamation of swamp lands. England 

 appropriated $20,000,000 to be used in this work. 

 Italy and Germany both assisted in the construction of 

 important works or aided land owners to do so by sub- 

 sidies. 



The effort to drain swamp lands began, like the 

 movement to irrigate the desert, with the individuals. 

 It was taken up by the corporation or colony and is 

 now fast becoming the concern of the nation. In north- 

 ern New York, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, and 

 other states, private enterprise has done a great deal in 

 the reclamation of swamp lands, but in a number of 



instances the task has been too stupendous, and now the 

 request is made that the general government shall do 

 for the swamp lands what it has done for the arid lands. 

 No one denies the wisdom of Congress in its irrigation 

 projects ; no one will question the right of Congress in 

 reclaiming its swamp lands. 



In California what are known as the tule lands 

 have to a certain extent been drained ; - they are now 

 growing most profitable crops of asparagus, celery and 

 onions. 



One of the most important drainage projects that 

 has been agitated is the St. Francis basin. The soil, 

 freed from its surplus of moisture, would be among the 

 fertile in the world and 3,800,000 acres, with sixteen 

 feet alluvial deposit, would become cultivable. The ter- 

 ritory involved would more than double the area of the 

 land which the British government has secured by 

 spending $25,000,000 on the Nile in Egypt. 



Our marshes are sources of disease, because there 

 is no way of ridding them of decaying organic matter, 

 and because they are breeding places for mosquitoes that 

 carry organic matter, and because they are breeding 

 places for mosquitoes that carry the germs of zymotic 

 disorders, and are indeed, the prime agencies of their 

 increase. The swamps would not cost much to drain, 

 but the drainage would pay in most cases, as a com- 

 mercial proposition, because the lands would make the 

 very richest, therefore the most productive. 



The swamps are often caused by beavers building 

 their dams in such a manner as to back the rainfall into 

 low, fiat lands, and the natural outlets become blocked 

 through an unexpected agency. 



James J. Hill, president of the Great Northern 

 railway in 1879 and 1880, had forty miles of ditches 

 dug at his own expense. It took the people several 

 years to become convinced that the Hill plan for the 

 reclamation of swamp land through which his road ran 

 would afford them any relief. Six years later that 

 same gentleman headed a subscription with $10,000 

 for a complete topographical survey of the Red River 

 valley. The state legislature turned a deaf ear for an 

 appropriation to carry on this great work. Again the 

 president of the Great Northern railroad showed his 

 faith in drainage by contributing the sum of $25,000 

 with which to make a beginning. No better investment 

 was ever made. Lands that were utterly worthless were 

 drained and soon became among the most fertile of 

 the celebrated Red River valley of the north. Reports 

 from year to year showed that most of the ditches were 

 maintaining their original capacity ; some were increas- 

 ing, while a few were gradually filling up, a process 

 not unusual nor unexpected where the slope was small 

 and where the water from a sandy loam soil, carrying 

 more or less fine sand, was discharged into the ditch. 



The benefits attending all this work have been 

 threefold. The first and that for which they were dug, 

 was an immediate physical benefit. On this point good 

 testimony apears in the "Report of the Board of Drain- 

 age Commissioners" for the year ending December 31, 

 1901. The inspection engineer says: "The immediate 



The irrigation Age 

 Primer of Irrigation 



