Community Civics and Rural Life Part 30

Extent to which farmers of your locality raise their own table vegetables and stock feed.

Evidence furnished by your town, or neighboring towns, during the war, of the wealth-producing power of vacant lots or unused backyards.

RECLAMATION OF ARID LANDS

Much of our public land has been nonproductive solely because of the lack of moisture. In 1902 a law known as the Reclamation Act was pa.s.sed by Congress, providing that the proceeds from the sale of public lands in states containing arid regions,[Footnote: The states to which this law applies are Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Was.h.i.+ngton, and Wyoming. See map.] except such as were already devoted to educational and other public purposes, should be used for the construction and maintenance of irrigation works. This reclamation work is in charge of the Reclamation Service of the Department of the Interior, whose engineers have built great dams and reservoirs from which the water has been led by ca.n.a.ls and ditches into the desert. By 1916 more than 1,000,000 acres had been irrigated under this act, the crop value in that year reaching $35,000,000. The reclaimed land is disposed of to actual settlers in accordance with the homestead laws, each homesteader repaying the government in annual installments the cost of reclaiming the land he occupies. The fund so created is used by the government for further reclamation projects. The Department of Agriculture sends its experts to advise with the farmers in regard to the problems peculiar to the reclaimed regions. "Every effort should be and is, therefore, being made to promote the success of the farmer, and on the basis of his success to increase the prosperity of the country." [Footnote 2: Report of the Reclamation Service, 1912- 1913, p. 4.]

The Yuma project in Arizona opened a new Valley of the Nile where four crops of alfalfa are now raised on what once were arid lands.

The streets of Yuma and Somerton are crowded with the automobiles of farmers, enriched by thousands of acres of splendid long-staple cotton, alfalfa, corn, and feterita. Another irrigated valley in Arizona, that of the Salt River, has few superiors in the world and has come in three years into great prosperity. Arizona planted to cotton last year 92,000 acres. Its crop was 96 per cent perfect, the best record in the United States. [Footnote: Arthur D. Little, "Developing the Estate," ATLANTIC MONTHLY, March, 1919.]

The princ.i.p.al irrigation projects of the Reclamation Service are shown on the accompanying map.

RECLAMATION BY STATES AND PRIVATE ENTERPRISE

Five or six times as much arid land has been reclaimed by private enterprise as by the Reclamation Service. The first extensive irrigation project in the West was a cooperative enterprise by the Mormon colonists in Utah. It is said that about two fifths of the land irrigated in the United States is supplied with water by works built and controlled by individual farmers or by a few neighbors, while another one third is supplied by stock companies.

As early as 1877 Congress pa.s.sed "a desert land law," by which homesteads were granted in the arid lands on condition that the settlers should irrigate the land. In 1894 the Carey Act was pa.s.sed by Congress under which the national government may give to a state as much as a million acres of arid public land within its borders, on condition that the state provides for its irrigation.

The work is done by private stock companies, with whom the state makes a contract for the purpose. The most extensive irrigation project undertaken by private enterprise is that of the Imperial Valley in California, which derives its water from the Colorado River. Under the laws of California the Imperial Valley region has been organized as an "irrigation district," with power to levy taxes for the development and support of the irrigation work. Each state in which irrigation is practiced has its own laws regulating the use of water by farmers and other consumers.

The theory is that the state regulates the appropriation of the water, exercising this power and holding the land in trust for the public ... It is the duty of every state to which the Reclamation Act is applicable to a.s.sist with every resource under its control.[Footnote: Water Supply Paper, 234, U.S. Geological Survey, Department of the Interior, p. 66.]

Reference has been made in Chapter XIV to the proposed plan for the reclamation and settlement of new areas of arid land by returning soldiers.

SWAMP LANDS

There are probably 80,000,000 acres of swamp lands in the United States which could be made productive by drainage. Farmers themselves could reclaim much of this land at comparatively small cost, greatly increasing their own profit and the wealth of the country.

One farm in Wisconsin has 40 acres of poorly drained land that in its present condition is practically worthless. $25.00 per acre spent in drainage will make this 40-acre tract the equal of any in the district, and good land is selling there at $150.00 per acre.

[Footnote 2: "Unprofitable Acres," in YEAR BOOK, Department of Agriculture, 1915, P. 147.]

The national government has at various times granted to the states swamp lands aggregating 60,000,000 acres, with the expectation that the states would reclaim them. The states have, however, done very little to fulfill the expectation. These swamp lands are among those whose reclamation by returning soldiers is proposed by the government.

Investigate and report on the following topics:

The work of the Reclamation Service of the national government.

If you live in one of the states to which the Reclamation Act applies, report on what has been accomplished by it in your state.

The development of one of the irrigation projects shown on the map.

Irrigation by private or state enterprise in your state (if any), and what it has accomplished.

The reclamation of Utah by the Mormons.

The development of the Imperial Valley of California.

The laws regulating the use of water for irrigation in your state (if an irrigated state).

The swamp areas in your locality or state. Progress made in their reclamation.

The reclamation of swamp or marshy land on particular farms of your locality.

The extent of idle cut-over land in your locality, why it is idle, the uses to which it could be put if reclaimed.

CONSERVATION OF WATER POWER

By the construction of dams, reservoirs, and ca.n.a.ls the waters of a few of our streams are turned to the work of reclaiming land.

Our unused water resources are very great. Niagara Falls have been harnessed for industrial uses, and with only a small part of their power in use they light the streets and houses, run the street cars, and turn the wheels of industry in Buffalo and Toronto and the neighboring region. But so far we are making use of less than 10 per cent of the power easily available from our streams. "The water now flowing idly from our hills to the sea could turn every factory wheel and every electric generator, operate our railroads, and still leave much energy to spare for new developments."

[Footnote: Arthur D. Little, "Developing the Estate," ATLANTIC MONTHLY, March, 1919, p. 388.] It is probably not too much to expect that when our undeveloped water power is utilized it will provide electric light and power for every farm in the land. Our nation has allowed many of the best water power sites of the country to fall into the hands of private speculators who hold them undeveloped, as in the case of farmlands, forests, and other resources.

CONSERVATION OF FLOOD WATERS

Floods are not only immensely destructive of property, causing a loss of $100,000,000 along the Mississippi River alone in a single year, but they carry to the sea water that might be used for irrigation and for industry. Reservoirs, such as are built for irrigating projects, regulate the flow of water in streams and prevent floods. In New England and New York reservoirs have been built for this very purpose, and probably 10 per cent of the flood waters that originate in these states is saved in this way and turned to industrial uses. Similar conservation of flood waters occurs in Minnesota, but it is estimated that for the country as a whole not more than one per cent of the flood waters is saved.

[Footnote: "Conservation of Water Resources," Water Supply Paper 234, U.S. Geological Survey, 1919.] There are areas in which the reservoir system is impracticable, as in the lower Mississippi Valley. Here all that can be done is to protect the adjacent land by means of levees while controlling the floods farther up the valley.

FUEL RESOURCES

Larger use of water power would conserve another valuable resource--coal. Of this fuel we have vast resources--"in West Virginia alone more than Great Britain and Germany combined." But the supply is not inexhaustible and we are mining it and using it in an extravagant manner. The loss here is not merely of heat and power and light, but of many valuable products of coal, including dyes, ammonia, vaseline, and many others.

DESTRUCTION BY FLOODS

Floods are increasing in the United States. This is due chiefly to the destruction of our forests by wasteful lumbering and by fire.

In forested areas the ground absorbs the rainfall more easily, while in areas barren of trees and other vegetation it runs off the surface. The destruction of the forests, therefore, involves not only the loss of the timber, but also the loss caused by the floods, including the was.h.i.+ng away of the soil.

THE FOREST RESERVES

In 1891 Congress authorized the President to establish "forest reserves," the first to be created being the "Yellowstone Park Timberland Reserve." From time to time new reserves were established, and in 1907 the name was changed to the National Forests. In 1917, more than 176 million acres were included within the National Forest boundaries, 21 million acres of which, however, belonged to private owners. They are administered by the Forest Service of the Department of Agriculture, at the head of which is the Chief Forester. They are grouped in seven districts with a district forester in charge of each. Over each of the 150 forests in the seven districts there is a forest supervisor; and each forest is further subdivided into ranger districts under district rangers who not only look after timber sales and the use of the forests generally, but also "help build roads, trails, bridges, telephone lines, and other permanent improvements."

A ranger must naturally be sound in body, for he is called upon to work for long periods in all kinds of weather. He must also know how to pack supplies and find food for himself and his horse in a country where it is often scarce. Besides a written test, prospective rangers are examined in compa.s.s surveying, timber work, and the handling of horses. [Footnote: "Government Forest Work," Forest Service, U. S. Department of Agriculture, p. 15.]

There are also employed in the Forests great numbers of logging engineers, lumbermen, scalers, planting a.s.sistants, guards, and others. In the great war, the Forest Service raised two regiments of men who went to France to a.s.sist in the various kinds of forestry work necessitated by the war.

WORK OF THE FOREST SERVICE

The purpose of the Forest Service is to secure the use of the forests "in such a way that they will yield all their resources to the fullest extent without exhausting them, for the benefit primarily of the home builder. The controlling policy is serving the public while conserving the forests." [Footnote: "The Status of Forestry in the United States," Forest Service Circular 167, 1909, p. 5.] Timber is cut and sold, but always with a view to developing future growth. The forests are protected against fire.

Burned-over areas are reforested by planting. Water power sites are protected. The freest possible use of forest pasture land is permitted, but under such regulations as to prevent injury to the forests and the denudation of the land by overgrazing. In 1915, nine million cattle, horses, sheep, and goats were pastured in the forests. In 1916 it was said that "more than 20 million dollars will probably be spent in the next ten years in building good roads in the National Forests." [Footnote 2: "Opening up the National Forests by Road Building," YEAR BOOK of the Department of Agriculture, 1916. Also reprinted in separate Leaflet No. 696.]

WASTE OF TIMBER RESOURCES

But our timber resources are not all in the National Forests, and the waste continues to an appalling extent.

With a total annual cut of 40,000,000,000 feet, board-measure, of merchantable lumber, another 70,000,000,000 feet are wasted in the field and at the mill. In the yellow-pine belt the values in rosin, turpentine, ethyl alcohol, pine oil, tar, charcoal, and paper stock lost in the waste are three or four times the value of the lumber produced. Enough yellow-pine pulp-wood is consumed in burners, or left to rot, to make double the total tonnage of paper produced in the United States.

But the wastes in lumbering, colossal though they are in absolute amount, are trivial compared to the losses which our estate has suffered, and still endures, from forest fires. The French properly regard as a national calamity the destruction of perhaps a thousand square miles of their fine forests by German sh.e.l.ls.

And yet the photographs that they show of this wreck and utter demolition may be reproduced indefinitely on 10,000,000 acres of our forest lands swept each year by equally devastating fire for which our own people are responsible. You have doubtless already forgotten that forest fire which last autumn, in Minnesota, burned over an area half as large again as Ma.s.sachusetts, destroying more than twenty-five towns, killing 400 people, and leaving 13,000 homeless. [Footnote: "Developing the Estate," ATLANTIC MONTHLY, March, 1919, pp. 384-385.]

The nation has been defrauded of a great deal of wealth in timber by speculators who have taken advantage of the homestead laws.

Single tracts of 160 acres often have a value for the timber alone of $20,000 ... Lands acquired ... under the guise of the homestead law are to-day in the hands of lumber companies who promptly purchased them from the settlers as soon as the t.i.tle pa.s.sed, and are either reserving them for later cutting or are holding the land itself after cutting for from $40 to $60 an acre, or even more--a speculative process which effectively prevents the possibility of men of small means acquiring and establis.h.i.+ng homes there. [Footnote 2: "The National Forests and the Farmer," in YEAR BOOK, Department of Agriculture, 1914, p. 70.]