East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current, 1906-03-29

The man who can provide homes
for industrious and strong-armed
citizens is benefactor to the race.
If Representative Steenerson of Min
nesota can push his swamp reclama-
tion measure to enactment into a law.
he will be deserving of the praise of
not only this but future generations.
His bill is a practical extension of
the old homestead idea, or rather,
perhaps, an application to the vast
areas of our swamp lands of the idea
embodied in the national irrigation
law.
There are in the neighborhood of
1OO,O00,000 acres of swamp lands in
the United States some 70,000,000 of
which have been surveyed, and the
great bulk would make splendid
farms, II the excess of water were
drained off. 4
The Steenerson bill provides for the
beginning of the work of reclamation
of these huge areas. The measure is
framed after the irrigation law; 1t
provides that the receipts from the
sales of public lands in the non-irri-
CATION states shall constitute a drain
age fund to be expended by the gov
ernment in great drainage works, and
further, that the cost of such drain
age shall be prorated among the land
benefited and paid back by the set
tiers into the fund" to be used over
again for additional reclamation work
Create Thousands OF Homes.
This plan Oh developing the inter-
nal resources of the country and
making homes of waste places, is
splendid in its scope, and appears to
be entirely practicable and profitable.
Take for instance, the single exam
pie of the swamp lands of the Kan
kakee river basin in Indiana and Illi-
nois. Here are some 100000 acres
of the very richest OF bottom lands,
bnt subject to overflow. They are
worthless except where they have
been reclaimed through expensive
private drainage works, when they
have become worth 500 to $3.50 an
acre. Yet It is estimated by the gov
ernment surveyors and engineers that
the entire system could be effectively
drained at a cost In the neighborhood
of $40 an acre. The same can be said
Ol lllt ldlluS DI lllt Iktu 1klNtT valley
in Minnesota.
These include the finest grain and
farm lands in the northwest except
that they are frequently overflowed.
1t would be worth millions of dollars
TO the farmers and settlers who would
occupy these lands in small tracts, to
have perfect system of drainage
provided. These extensive systems,
however, especially where they are
interstate. seem to be feasible for
handling only by the general govern
ment
The Steenerson bill places the en-
tire management of the work in the
hands of the reclamation service and
the plan of operation follows very
closely the irrigation work now being
done by that branch of the interior
department. Government lands, ceded
Indian lands and private lands may be
included in any drainage project, but
in each case the cost of the drainage
improvement is to be borne by the
owner of the land and no settlers can
have drainage provided for more than
100 acres, thus insuring the division
of the tracts into small farms which
must be actually settled upon and
titled.
Drainage Work In Progress.
This work the reclamation service
is qualified to do at this very mo-
ment. While primarily an engineer
ing bureau II has, in all its great ir-
rigation projects, to deal directly with
the farmer. 1t must outline COM
prehensive drainage system for each
irrigation project, since there is as
much danger from too much irriga-
tion as too little, and to do this the
service has its own farm and soil ex-
perts.
o Some of the irrigation projects have
distinctively drainage features, in
fact are almost as much drainage as
they are irrigation projects. In the
klamath project 10000 acres, or
more than half of the area OF the to-
tai project, is rich tule land covered
by eight or 10 feet of water, and is
to be drained and converted into over
1000 farms. The topographic branch
of the geological survey, of which the