THE AUDUBON BULLETIN 3j_ 



The project, however, differs this time from other drainage programs 

 in its magnitude, as it involves a territorv of more than 300 miles in 

 length. The proposed area to be drained is that of the Upper Mississippi 

 Bottoms, reaching from Lake Pepin, Minn., to Rock Island, 111. 



Seven million dollars have been pledged toward the work by land 

 operators. The next National Congress will be asked to appropriate 

 another fourteen million. 



Wisconsin and Iowa are the states most vitallv affected if this 

 scheme goes through. For a beginning it is proposed to drain a strip 

 of land on the east side of the river, between Lynxville and De Soto, 

 a distance of twenty miles and known as the Winneshiek Bottoms. 

 Unfortunately this work has been authorized by the War Department 

 and sanctioned by Wisconsin Courts. The affected area covers about 

 14,000 acres on the Wisconsin side and 15,000 more on the Iowa side, 

 that will also be drained shortly. 



According to Dr. A. L. Bakke, of the Iowa State College of Agri- 

 culture, who has made an exhaustive study of the region, the land 

 about to be drained is useless for farming purposes and serves humanitv 

 far better in its present state. He estimates that for fish alone its pres- 

 ent value is Si. 00 per foot water frontage. 



To the student of bird life this region is of particular interest. The 

 Mississippi Valley is one of America's most important highways of 

 bird migration, one which makes possible an easy flight from Central 

 and South America via the Gulf of Mexico to large territories adjacent 

 to the valley and to regions far beyond its headwaters, into Canada 

 and the Arctic. Untold thousands of wild waterfowl are produced on 

 these shallow waters while untold millions find the marsh lands in- 

 valuable retreats, assuring a safe journey, north or south. Practically all 

 of the best duck food plants in the United States, such as wild rice, coon- 

 tail, wild celery, duckweeds, pondweeds, and many other water plants 

 are found growing here. The many advantages of so wide a character 

 make the Bottoms a paradise incomparable to many aquatic game 

 birds, waders, and insectiverous song birds. It would be hard indeed to 

 find another range more richly blessed with a greater variation of bird 

 life. Thus we note among the migrants and nesting birds, grebes, loons, 

 gulls, terns, cormorants, ducks, geese, swans, herons, cranes, rails, galli- 

 nules, phalaropes, snipe, plover, hawks, cuckoos, kingfishers, woodpeckers, 

 goatsuckers, swifts, humming birds, flvcatchers, blackbirds, javs, orioles, 

 sparrows, finches, swallows, vireos, warblers, wrens, thrushes, and blue- 

 birds. 



Here the birds also find the many protective elements so necessary 

 during the migratorv flight: food, water, cover, range, and sanctuarv. 

 The diversity of its terrain is particularly favorable to many species 

 as nesting and breeding grounds. In its new status, however, the 

 birds will be robbed of these natural advantages; the valleys no longer 



