i8o OUR FEDERAL LANDS 



by-product of power, usually used to shift waters to 

 levels not otherwise accessible, but power reservoirs 

 may not serve reclamation. Power must be con- 

 stant, necessitating a reservoir kept approximately 

 at a level Irrigation stores water during wet sea- 

 sons to be drawn low during dry seasons. 



The advanced thinkers of to-day see Reclama- 

 tion a vastly bigger, broader and more necessary 

 movement than we thought it a quarter of a century 

 ago when the system which bears its name set out 

 to rescue a few score opportunities in a western des- 

 ert of colossal size. What are those few lands to 

 the half billion acres which four centuries of waste- 

 ful farming has depleted in the East? The time is 

 nearing to reclaim these, too. 



"The older states also must be restored agri- 

 culturally," said Dr. Work in an address to a Rec- 

 lamation Conference in Washington in 1925. 

 "Western farmers can not compete with the wages 

 paid and hours of city employers, then pay freight 

 to the East. Those keen Americans on the Pacific 

 Coast have already become manufacturers, and they 

 are rapidly developing a market out through the 

 Golden Gate. There are two mountain ranges and a 

 wide desert between the Middle West and the Pacific 

 Coast. Economically, a trade division is pending be- 

 tween the Atlantic and Pacific states. Home pro- 



