RECLAIMING THE DESERT 181 



duction and home consumption will soon demand in- 

 tensive study by our economists. The Great Divide 

 already means more than a seam in the earth's sur- 

 face. It is already a rent in the economic fabric of 

 a nation. 



"To reclaim small areas in a few states by ir- 

 rigation is of local concern. It does not compre- 

 hend the two real questions vital to the supremacy 

 of this nation, the conservation of our natural re- 

 sources and the reclaiming of land lost to agricul- 

 ture. We may no longer follow the sun, burying 

 our dead as the ancients did, with their faces toward 

 it, without hope of a new day. We must begin 

 again, in the East, as did our forefathers. Not to 

 conquer the land, wrest a living from it, and aban- 

 don it, but to restore it. Not to leave it for new 

 farm homes in the West, for they are already taken 

 up except where artificially watered. This is a ques- 

 tion for states to study and not the Federal Govern- 

 ment, whose inadequacy as an operator has been 

 demonstrated in the irrigated agriculture of the 

 West. Each state and territory has a Government- 

 subsidized agricultural college. They should stress 

 reclamation. Centralized authority from the Agri- 

 cultural Department of our Government, through 

 its agricultural colleges with decentralized responsi- 

 bility assumed by states are the agencies available at 

 hand to turn the thoughts of our people in this di- 

 rection. 



"Reclamation for a growing nation of 1 10,000,- 



