Ween DU BON “BOLLE TIN aI 
The project, however, differs this time from other drainage programs 
jn its magnitude, as it involves a territory 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, IIl. 
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 vitally 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 Nae 
culture, who has made an exhaustive study of the region, the land 
about to be drained is useless for farming purposes and serves humanity 
far better in its present state. He estimates that for fish alone its pres- 
ent value is $1.00 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 1n 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, flycatchers, blackbirds, jays, orioles, 
sparrows, finches, swallows, vireos, warblers, wrens, thrushes, and blue- 
birds. 
Here the birds also find the many protective elements so necessary 
during the migratory flight: food, water, cover, range, and sanctuary. 
‘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 
