The Republican journal., 1906-04-19
To Farm the Swamps.
Great Government Drainage Projects. En-
largement of the Old Homestead Idea.

Great Government Drainage Projects. En-
largement of the Old Homestead Idea
The man who can provide homes for
industrious and strong citizens
is benefctor to the race. If Repre-
sentative STEVENSON of Minnesota can
push his swamp reclamation measure
to enactment into law he will be de-
serving of the praise of not only this,
but of future generations. His bill is a
practical extension of the old home
stead idea, or rather, perhaps, an appli-
cation to the vast areas of our swamp
lands of the idea embodied in the ma
tional irrigation law.
There are in the neighborhood of
100, 100000 acres of swamp lands in the
United States, some 10000, 900 of which
have been surveyed, and the great bulk
would make splendid farms if the ex-
cess of water were drained Off
The Stevenson bill provides for the
| beginning of the work of reclamation
of these huge areas. The measure is
| framed after the irrigation law; it pro-
vides that the receipts from sales of
public lands in the non-irrigation
States shall constitute a drainage"
fund to be expended by the Govern
ment in great drainage works, and fur
Their, that the cost of such drainage
shall be pro-rated among the land bene-
flied and paid back by the settlers into
the fund" to be used over again for
additional reclamation work.
This plan of developing the internal
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 in
stance, the single example of the swamp
lands of the kankakee River basin in
Indiana and Illinois. Here are some
400,0 900 acres of the very richest Of bot
tom lands, but subject to overflow.
They are worthless except where they
have been reclaimed through expensive
private drainage works, when they have
become worth 800 and $3.50 an acre.
! ct it is estimated by the Government
surveyors and engineers that the entire
system could be effectively drained at a
cost in the neighborhood of 80 an acre.
The same can be said of the lands Of
the Red River Valley i'll Minnesota.
These include the finest grain and farm
lands in the northwest, except that they
are frequently overlooked. 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
government
The STEVENSON bill places the entire
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, coded Indian lands
and private lands, may be included in
any drainage project, but i'll each case
the cost of the drainage Improvement
is to be borne by the owner OF the land
and no settler can have drainage pro
yided for more than 100 acres, thus III
surfing the division OF the tracts into
small farms which must be actually
settled upon and titled.
DRAINAGE WORK ALREADY IN FRO
GRESS.
This work the Reclamation Service is
qualified to do at this very moment
While primarily an engineering bureau
it has, in all it's great irrigation projects,
to deal directly with the farmer. 1t
must outline comprehensive drainage
system for each irrigation project, since
there is as much danger from too much
irrigation as too little, and to do this
the Service has its own farm and soil
experts. Some of the irrigation projects
nave ulSIluCtlNely uiailteSo ASos'uAes' III
fact are almost as much drainage as
they are irrigation projects. In the
Klamath project 136,0Oo 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 a
thousand farms The topographic
branch of the Geological Survey, OF
which the Reclamation Service is also
a branch. has already run its lines over
many of the great swamp areas of the
eastern States and DIS soon as the
Stevenson bill becomes law the Geo
logical Survey engineers will be ready
to launch out into immediate activity
in drainage projects.
WOULD START WITH A MILLION DOL
The fund provided by the bill would
he small as compared with the lrrga-
ton fund-it would approximate half
million dollars "a year and would start
off with about S1,000,000, the receipts
from the sales for the fiscal year 1900