140 



THE GAME BREEDER 



LAND FOR RETURNING SOLDIERS. 



F. W. Wilson 



There should be a large volume of ex- 

 plosives trade in prospect for Du Pont 

 dealers arising out of the ''Land for Re- 

 turning Soldiers" movement, which has 

 been set on foot by the United States De- 

 partment of the Interior. 



Secretary Lane of the department 

 started the movement by his letter to 

 President Wilson, dated May 31, 1918. 

 In it he stated that he thought the time 

 had come when the country should give 

 careful consideration to the preparation 

 of plans for providing employment for- 

 our soldiers returning from the war. 



In May their return was merely a 

 somewhat dim prospect. Now it is a 

 present and pressing reality. Thousands 

 of soldiers in training in the United 

 States are, at the time of writing, being 

 demobilized and sent to their homes. It 

 is just as important to provide these men 

 with employment as those coming back 

 from Europe. 



It would seem as though the vast in- 

 dustrial army who were engaged in vari- 

 ous branches of munition or war sup- 

 plies manufacture should be considered 

 as well as the soldiers in uniform. They, 

 too, will be as badly in need of employ- 

 ment and as deserving of government aid 

 as the men who wore the khaki. 



It was Secretary Lane's idea as ex- 

 pressed to the President that soldiers de- 

 siring to take up farming as an occupa- 

 tion should be provided with the means 

 whereby they could become the owners 

 of raw land that could in the course of 

 time be converted into fertile farms. 



The secretary pointed out that there 

 were millions of acres of unappropriated 

 land in the United States suitable for the 

 purpose under consideration. An artic 1 e 

 in the Scientific American of November 

 9, 1918, contains tables showing the num- 

 ber of acres of stump land and the num- 

 ber of acres of swamp land respectively 



in the various states of the United- States 

 as follows, 



Acres ^ Acres 



State Stump Land Swamp Land 



Acres Acres 



State Stump Land Swamp Land 



Alabama' 14,785,000 1,479,200 



Arkansas 13,893,000 5,912,300 



California 3,031,000 3,420,000 



Connecticut 30,000 



Delaware 127,200 



Florida 10,109,000 19,800,000 



Georgia 20,141,000 2,700,000 



llinois 925,000 



Idaho 676,000 



Indiana 625,000 



Iowa 930,000 



Kansas 359,380 



Kentucky 3,222,000 444,600 



Louisiana 11,877,000 10,196,605 



Maine 6,135,000 156,520 



Maryland 1,848,000 192,000 



Massachusetts 59,500 



Michigan 11,686,000 2,947,439 



Minnesota 14,022,000 5,832,308 



Mississippi 13,203,000 5,760,200 



Miissouri 8,900,000 2,439,600 



Montana 674,000 



Nebraska .'. 512,100 



New Hampshire .... 2,608,000 12,700 



New Jersey 1,151,000 326,400 



New York 5,997,000 529,100 



North Carolina ■ 12,745,00 2,748,160 



North Dakota 200,000 



Ohio 155,047 



Oklahoma 31,500 



Oregon 3,537,000 254,000 



Pennsylvania 5,297,000 50,000 



Rhode Island ' 8,046 



South Carolina 8,994,000 3,122,120 



South Dakota ..A 611,480 



Tennessee 7,833,000 639,600 



Texas 12,936,000 2,240,000 



Vermont 2,070,000 23,000 



Virginia 9,929,000 800,000 



Washington 3,330,000 20,500 



West Virginia 4,634,000 23,900 



Wisconsin 13,246,000 2,360,000 



Total 228,509,000 79,005,023 



In the opinion of Secretary Lane, 

 about half of the uncleared stump land 



and undrained swamp land could be 



cleared and drained and made cultivable. 

 He also made reference to the arid 

 lands in the west, many thousands of 



acres of which could be taken in hand bv 



