Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1906-03-26
TO FARM
 THE SWAMPS
Great Government Drainaqe Projects. Enlargement of Home stead Idea.
 stead Idea.
Guy Elliott Mitchell.

 zens is d benefactor to the race. If Representative Steenerson of Mime sota can push his swamp reclamation measure to enactment into law. he will be deserving 0f 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 100,000,000 acres of swamp lands in the United Stats, some 7o.000,000 of which have been surveyed, and the great bulk would make splendid farms if the excess of water were drained off
 The Steenerson bill provides for the beginning of the work of reclamation of these huge areas. The measure is framed after the irrigation law; it provides that the receipts
 sales of public lands in the non-irriga tion states shall constitute a drain age" fund to be expended by the government in great drainage works. and further 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. Would Create Thousands of Homes. This plan of developing the internal resources of the country and making homes of waste places, is splendid in 1 its scope, and appears to be entirely 1 practicable and profitable. Take for swamp lands of the Kankakee river l basin in Indiana and Illinois. There are some 400,0 acres of the very richest of bottom lands, but sub- l ject to overflow They are worthless l except where they have been reclaim ed through expensive private drainage works, when they have bcome worth l $10O and $150 an acre. Yet it is esti- mated by the government surveyors and engineers that the entire system could be effectively drained at cost in the neighborhoOd of $10 an acre The same can be said of the lands of the Red River valley In Minnesota. These include the finest grain and that they are frequently overhowed. IL would be worth millions of dollars to tho farmers and settlers. who would occupy these lands in small tracts, to have perfect system of drainage provided. These extensive l systems, however, especially where they are interstate, seem to be feasi- ble for handling only by the general l government.
 The Steenerson bill places the en- tire management of the work in the hands of the Reclamation Service and
 
 closely the irrigation work now being done by that branch of the Interior department. Government lands, ceded Indian lands and private lands may he included in any drainage project. but in each case, the cost of the drain age improvement is to be borne by the owner of the land and no settler can have drainage provided for more than 160 acres thus insuring the division of the tracts into small farms which must be actually settled upon and titled.
 , Drainage Work Already in Progress.
 This work the Reclamation Service is qualified to do at this very moment. While primarily an engineering bur eau it has. in all it's great irrigation projects, to deal directly with the farmer. It must outline a comprehen. sive drainage system for each irriga. tion project. since there is as much danger from too much irrigation as too little, and to do this the service has it's own farm and soil experts Some of the irrigation projects have distinctively drainage features, in fact are almost as much drainage as they are irrigation projects. Tn the Kla math project 136,00O acres, or more than half of the area of the total pro iect. is rich tule land covered by eight or ten feet of water, and is to be drained and converted into over 8 tsorsand farms. The topographic branch of the geological survey, ot