RECLAIMING THE SWAMP LANDS OF THE 

 UNITED STATES* 



By Herbert M. Wilson, U. S. Geological Survey 



THE available agricultural lands 

 of the United States have 

 nearly all passed into private 

 ownership, and the larger portion is 

 under cultivation. With rapidly growing 

 population and greater demand for agri- 

 cultural products, the need of additional 

 farm land grows apace. Similar influ- 

 ences resulted a few years ago in the cre- 

 ation of the Reclamation Service for 

 developing the water supply available for 

 irrigating the arid lands. It is believed 

 that the maximum area which has been 

 brought under cultivation by irrigation 

 approximates 8,000,000 acres, and it is 

 estimated that there has been brought 

 into agricultural use by drainage areas 

 equal to if not in excess of those so de- 

 veloped by irrigation. Further, while the 

 area estimated by the Reclamation Serv- 

 ice as possible of reclamation by irriga- 

 tion within the next quarter century may 

 not exceed 12,000,000 acres, it appears 

 equally probable that the areas of existing 

 swamp lands of the United States which 

 may be made available for agricultural 

 uses by drainage exceed those which may 

 be reclaimed by irrigation, providing the 

 drainage works were undertaken by the 

 Federal Government with vigor equal to 

 that devoted to irrigation reclamation. 



As agricultural lands are becoming 

 more scarce and the people of the country 

 have seen what the government can do in 

 bringing water to the barren deserts of 

 the West, they realize that the same gov- 

 ernment might be equally successful in 

 removing a superabundance of water. 

 They are beginning to appreciate as never 

 before the patent fact that waste swamp 

 lands may be rendered not only habitable, 

 but more productive than less fertile 

 neighboring lands naturally drained. 

 Now that the federal government is ex- 



pending millions of dollars annually for 

 the reclamation of the desert lands of the 

 arid West through the agency of irriga- 

 tion, those of us who live in more humid 

 regions are beginning to regard the vast 

 swamps of the Missouri and Mississippi 

 valleys and their tributaries, and those of 

 Florida and the Atlantic coast, and of the 

 Sacramento Valley of California as the 

 only large areas of possible agricultural 

 lands remaining undeveloped. 



MANY SWAMPS IN THE UNITED STATES 

 CAN BE RECLAIMED 



In the United States are over 60,000,- 

 000 acres of swamp or overflowed lands. 

 Let us speculate on what drainage of one- 

 half of this may mean. If it were possi- 

 ble to reclaim by drainage 25,000,000 

 acres of these swamps, the land values of 

 the country would be increased by more 

 than $2,500,000,000 and the crop values 

 of these sections by more than $750,000,- 

 000. If it is possible to subdivide this 

 enormous area into forty-acre farms, it 

 will supply 1,250,000 families with !.umes, 

 and it would put 6,000,000 people upon 

 lands that are now practically worth- 

 less. It is safe to say that each of these 

 families will spend $2,000 in houses and 

 in equipments for their farms. This will 

 cause the expenditure on the waste land 

 of today of more than $2,500,000,000. 

 An average family of five will spend $600 

 per year. This will mean to the business 

 interests of the United States an in- 

 creased trade of $750,000,000. 



The Senate Committee on Public 

 Lands of the 59th Congress reported 

 favorably a federal drainage bill which, 

 if enacted into law, will eventually pro- 

 duce results not dififering far from the 

 above, which now appear but an enthu- 

 siast's dream. 



*An address to the National Geographic Society, February 22, 1907 



