The Evening statesman. [volume] (Walla Walla, Wash.) 1903-1910, 1904-12-06

agricultural colleges. The federal gov
eminent expenis ten millions Of dol
lars annually toward this education
and for research in Washington and
in the several states and territories.
This department of agriculture has
given facilities for postgraduate work
to five hundred young men during the
last seven years preparing them for
advanced lines of work in the depart
ment and in the state institutions.
Irrigation.
During the two and a half years that
have elapsed since the passage of the
reclamation act rapid progress has
been made in the surveys and exam
nations of the opportunities for re-
clamation in the thirteen states and
three territories of the arid west. Con-
struction has already been begun on
the largest and most important Of the
irrigation works, and plans are being
completed for works which will utilize
the funds now available. The opera
tions are being carried on by the recla-
nation service, a corps of engineers
selected through competitive civil SER
vice examinations. This corps in
cludes experienced consulting and con-
structing engineers as we'll as various
experts in mechanical and legal mat
ter, and is composed largely of men
who have spent most of their lives in
practical affairs connected with irri-
cation. The larger problems have been
solved and it now remains to execute
with care, economy, and thoroughness
the work which has been laid out. All
important details are being carefully
considered by boards of consulting en-
gineers, selected for their thorough
Each project is taken up on the ground
by competent men and viewed from the
of the creation of prosper
Gus homes, and of promptly refunding
to the treasury the cost of construc-
ton. The reclamation act has been
found to be remarkably complete and
and so broad in it's provisions
that wide range of undertakings has
been possible under it. At the same
time, economy is guaranteed by the
fact that the funds must ultimately be
III HCu " Uc uoCO ONCI dSdlI
Forests.
1t is the cardinal principle of the
forest -reserve policy of this admins
tration that the reserves are for use.
Whatever interferes with the use of
their resources is to be avoided by ev-
cry possible means. But these re-
sources must be used in such a way
&c RI nook, thop, porp,opopf Tho for
est policy Of the government is just
now a subject of vivid public interest
the west and to the people
of the United States in general. The
forest reserves themselves are of ex-
treme value to the present as we'll as
to the future welfare of all the western
public-land states. They powerfully af-
feet the use and disposal of the pub
lie lands. They are of special import
ance because they preserve the water
supply and the supply of timber for
domestic purposes, and so promote
under the reclamation act
Indeed, they are essential to the well
fare of every one of the great interests
Of the west.
Forest reserves are created for two
principal reasons. The first is to pre-
serve the water supply. This is their
most important use. The principal
ues of the water thus preserved are ir-
rigation ranchers and settlers. cities
and towns to whom their municipal
water supplies are of the very first
Importance, users and furnishers of
water power, and the users of water
for domestic. manufacturing, mining
an dother purposes. All thes are d.
rectly dependent upon the forest re-
serves
The second reason for which forest
reserves are created is to preserve the
timber supply for various classes of
wood users. Among the more import
ant of these are settlers under the re-
clamation act and other acts, for
whom a cheap and accessible supply
of timber for domestic uses is abso-
lutely necessary; miners and prospec-
tors, who are in serious danger of
losing their timber supply by fire or
through export by lumber companies
when timber lands adjacent to their
mines pass into private ownership;