22 CONSERVATION THROUGH ENGINEERING. 



science, as Sir William Crookes said, for it is foremost among the 

 immediate practical problems of national and international states- 

 manship. 



LAND DEVELOPMENT. 



I wish now to ask consideration for another matter of home con- 

 cern to which I gave attention in my last report and as to which 

 the intervening year has strengthened and perhaps broadened my 

 ideas the development of our unused lands. 



It was never more vital to the welfare of our people that a cre- 

 ative and out-reaching plan of developing and utilizing our natural 

 resources should go bravely forward than it is to-day. Ours is a 

 growing country, and as its social and industrial superstructure 

 expands its agricultural foundation must be broadened in propor- 

 tion. The normal growth of the United States now requires an ad- 

 dition of 6,300,000 acres, to its cultivable area each year, which 

 means an average increase of 17,000 acres a day. 



Fortunately, the opportunity for this essential expansion exists 

 not only in the West, where much of the public domain is yet un- 

 occupied, but in every part of the Republic. We have a great fund 

 of natural resources in the very oldest States, from Maine to Louisi- 

 ana, which invite and would richly reward the constructive genius 

 of the Nation. It is claimed by those who have specialized for years 

 on the subject of reclamation that the control and utilization of flood 

 waters now wasted would produce within the next 10 years more 

 wealth than the entire cost to the United States of the war with 

 Germany. 



After every other war in our history the work of internal develop- 

 ment has gone forward by leaps and bounds, and our people have 

 thus quickly made good the economic wastes of the conflict. The 

 needs of to-day are different from those of the past and require differ- 

 ent treatment, but they are by no means beyond the reach of en- 

 lightened thought and action. 



More than a year ago we began an earnest discussion of reconstruc- 

 tion policies, particularly with respect to the land. But nothing has 

 been done. Not one line of legislation, not one dollar of money has 

 been provided except in the way of preliminary investigation. We 

 stand voiceless in the presence of opportunity and idle in the face of 

 urgent national need. 



A PROGRAM OF PROGRESS. 



The great work of material development accomplished in the past 

 has been done very largely by private capital and enterprise. Doubt- 

 less this must be the chief reliance for progress in the future. We 

 should realize, however, that this method has involved losses as well 





