14 NUT GROWING 



In some of the older countries of the world incomes 

 for large districts depend upon water plants, fish, 

 and other products of <wet lands artificially made 

 for the purpose. In this country we have already 

 caused irreparable damage by draining lands of the 

 sort which peoples with greater experience are to- 

 day engaged in constructing. 



Government estimates of wet lands in the United 

 States capable of being drained and made ready for 

 tilling, place the figure at sixty millions of acres. 

 Reclamation of this wet land would be little short of 

 criminal in localities where the wet lands at lesser 

 expense could be made ready for crops belonging 

 to such lands and sometimes bringing in larger in- 

 come than tilled land crops. We have already 

 thrown away much of our own rich heritage in 

 wet lands. What would people do for bread in 

 countries in which bread is made from the water 

 chestnut, if the American drainage idea were to 

 strike these countries like a blight? The water 

 chestnut is already acclimated in America as far 

 north as the Merrimac River in New Hampshire. 

 Hundreds of square miles of Oriental wet land are 

 devoted to the raising of the lotus a plant of which 

 every part is eaten. We have not as yet made use 

 of a nut which was employed by the Indians the 

 wankapin or water chinkapin but the time is com- 

 ing when we may regret the loss of lands upon which 

 this food supply may be freely grown. 



Fish breeders and crawfish breeders of northern 



