PROGRESS IN" RECLAMATION — BISSELL. 519 
WESTERN DIVISION, 
The eastern tier of the States comprised in this division — the 
Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas, Oldahoma, and Texas — have consid- 
erable areas of humid land in which drainage is frequently needed 
and irrigation is not needed. Lands can be found in all of these 
States which are not swampj^, but in which a high water table requires 
that they be drained in order to fit them for other use than pasture 
or meadow or forest culture. Drainage can in many cases be pro- 
vided at reasonable cost and where clearing is necessary this also 
is comparatively inexpensive. Farther west, irrigation projects 
have been investigated in the past and numerous opportunities of 
feasible development of this character exist in most of the Western 
States. 
Such reclamation can be applied to public land in Wyoming, Idaho, 
Washington, Oregon, California, and Arizona. In the other arid 
States most of the land to be reclaimed is in private ownership. 
The areas west of the hundredth meridian present many oppor- 
tunities for reclamation not only by irrigation but by drainage and 
by the clearing of cut-over lands, the latter opportunities occurring 
chiefly in Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, and California. 
Only a small percentage of these lands, however, are really suitable 
for reclamation at the present time. East of the mountain ranges the 
cut-over lands are mainly arid or semiarid and hence require irriga- 
tion for successful agriculture. The combination of the cost of irri- 
gation and of the necessary clearing and leveling of the lands is 
usually prohibitive even in the cases where irrigation is feasible at 
all, and in such cases it is usually best to encourage the reforestation 
of the lands by protecting the young growth from fire. Considerable 
areas of semiarid land may by scientific methods be successfully culti- 
vated without irrigation, but as the results are more or less precarious, 
the values for such agricultural use are usually not high and may 
exceed the cost of clearing. 
There are cases, however, where such reclamation may be wisely 
carried out. In the extreme Northwest, on the Pacific slope, are large 
areas of cut-over lands where deep and excellent soil occurs, where 
the topography is suitable, and where the rainfall is also sufficient for 
successful farming. Some areas in this region can be profitably and 
wisely devoted to agriculture, but in a large portion the cost of clear- 
ing, owing to the number, size, and character of the stumps that are 
in the way, would at present values of agricultural land make the 
enterprise prohibitive, and the land can best be utilized by reforesta- 
tion. This is true also to some extent in western Oregon and north- 
western California. A large portion of the cut-over lands in the 
Northwest is, of course, unsuitable for agriculture on account of 
