Reclaiming the Swamp Lands 



297 



63,000,000 acres reported by the General 

 Land Office as swamp lands. In so doing 

 the original legislation contemplated the 

 early reclaiming of these lands by the 

 construction of ditches or levees. The 

 states have parted with much of these 

 swamp lands in grants to railroads, to 

 corporations, and to individuals in the ex- 

 pectation that they would drain them. 

 The complications, however, resulting 

 from any attempt on the part of private 

 institutions, or of counties or states, aris- 

 ing from conflicting property rights and 

 conflicting benefits, have proven such that 

 many of the most important projects re- 

 main yet unstudied. If an individual 

 build the works, how will he be recom- 

 pensed for benefits to adjoining works of 

 his neighborhood? If the state build the 

 works, how will it be recompensed for 

 benefits to government lands? If the 

 federal government build the works, it 

 alone may successfully secure the co- 

 operation of individual landholders and 

 of states, and assess benefits proportion- 

 ately among all. The way has been 

 blazed for us by the Reclamation Act. 

 The procedure in organization of the 

 landholders into associations has been so 

 successfully worked out that the govern- 

 ment is actually constructing great irriga- 

 tion projects at vast expenditure of fed- 

 eral funds when the immediate benefit 

 will accrue almost wholly to private land- 

 owners, who shall recompense the gov- 

 'ernment for the outlay. 



For a number of years several of the 

 states have been actively engaged in ef- 

 forts to aid their people in the drainage 

 of their swamps. Foremost among these 

 in results accomplished are the states 

 of Minnesota, California, and Florida. In 

 the former is a state drainage commission 

 provided with generous annual appro- 

 priations, which are expended through 

 the medium of a drainage engineer in 

 actual construction of ditches. A recon- 

 naissance survey for the study of drain- 

 age projects has been made for nearly the 

 whole upper portion of Minnesota, and 

 many miles of more detailed surveys have 

 been made throughout the length of the 



Red River valley in Minnesota and 

 North Dakota, covering projects for con- 

 struction of many drainage ditches. 

 Finally, a number of these ditches, some 

 of considerable capacity, have been built 

 and are reclaiming lands through which 

 the farmers have constructed their sepa- 

 rate farm drains. 



RECLAIMING THE SWAMPS IN SACRA- 

 MENTO AND SAN JOAQUIN VALLEYS, 

 CALIFORNIA 



In California the state has been en- 

 gaged for many years in studying 

 projects for and aiding in the reclamation 

 of overflowed and swamp land in the 

 lower Sacramento and San Joaquin val- 

 leys. These lands are so low lying that 

 gravity drainage by ditches has been 

 found impracticable and reclamation is 

 by the construction of levees and the 

 pumping of the enclosed area. Some of 

 the protective works in that state are of 

 great extent, covering from seventeen to 

 sixty thousand acres each and involving 

 expenditures ranging from $150,000 to 

 $1,250,000 in various districts. At pres- 

 ent there is under consideration a system- 

 atic scheme for leveeing, drainage, and 

 pumping, the construction of which will 

 cost many millions of dollars. Individual, 

 county, district, and other independent ef- 

 forts have resulted in the expenditure of 

 over seventeen million dollars for con- 

 struction purposes in this area which have 

 been actually wasted, as the work of re- 

 claiming will have to be done over on 

 broader and more comprehensive lines, 

 so that the drainage for these vast areas 

 of submerged land may ultimately involve 

 expenditures exceeding twenty-five mil- 

 lions of dollars. 



THE CONDITIONS IN FLORIDA 



In Florida the drainage problem has 

 been an acute one for several years past. 

 Realizing how sparsely Florida was set- 

 tled and how difficult it would be to in- 

 duce railroads to build through its wilder- 

 nesses, the United States government in 

 1856 granted to the state every alternate 

 section in a strip 12 miles wide as an in- 



