74 FOREST CONDITIONS. 



The forests in this section are of the highest importance both to 

 the irrigation districts already developed and also to the enormous 

 areas that may by future irrigation works be made fertile. 



Storage reservoirs, diversion works, ditches, etc., are all safer and 

 more permanent when under a forested watershed than when under a 

 bare one. In the first case, with forest covering, there is a minimum 

 of flood action, and practically no torrential detritus to fill up the 

 works. From a denuded watershed, the water delivery is Irregular, 

 torrential and detritus laden. 



The public land now at its limits or near its limits of support of 

 population can, by judicious irrigation works, be made capable of sup- 

 porting a population of between fifty and one hundred millions. 

 Irrigated land has always been that capable of supporting the densest 

 population from agricultural returns. We see this in the history of 

 the Euphrates and the Nile. In both of these cases, and in the more 

 modern developments in India, we see that the important works were 

 carried out by the community or government, were managed by the 

 community, are thus managed, and that new work for further develop- 

 ment in the application of water to land in genial and dry climates, 

 such as those of India and Egypt, is planned or being executed solely 

 as government undertakings. 



There are three good reasons with us for this policy. The first is 

 that the lands susceptible of improvement are largely public lands. 

 The second is that the undertakings are too large for most private 

 initiative, and the third is that a public administration of irrigated 

 lands is the only one in which the land occupants can feel safe in not 

 becoming serfs of the water company, as is now practically the case 

 in the rich Irrigated valley of the Po, where the returns are large, but 

 the people in misery. 



Governments in the past and governments now recognize the ad- 

 vantage and propriety of making their lands productive by public 

 irrigation works. The peoples who have done this in the past have 

 been amongst the greatest. One of the most powerful governments 

 of the present day, that of Great Britain, is now, as it long has been, 

 engaged in such irrigation development. The dam on the River Nile, 

 near Assouan, will be the greatest land reclamation works in the world. 

 The values created by the application of water to land in Egypt will 

 far exceed the values created by the exclusion of water from land in 

 Holland. Both are government undertakings. In our country the 



