The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1911-05-02

populatlon.and are TO be found in al
most tYery State Of the live, up-to-
gate asst Some Of them lie near the
big cities, others are surrounded by
farms worth a hundred dollars an
acre n nearly all are accessible by
water and rail to the markets.
~ this swamp. land ~seventy-two
million acres lie east of the great
are found in the Mississippi delta.
There are vast tracts in the Northern
states. Minnesota alone has some
thing like four million acres, and
Michigan one-fourth as much more.
The State of Maine has between three
tract in North Dakota, and Wiscon-
sin has several millions Which need
only to be drained to be turned into
farms.
We look upon Illinois as thoroughly
settled. We know it is one Of our
greatest corn States and that the land
is worth from 800 to $500 an acre.
Nevertheless that State has more than
two million acres Of flooded lands
that might be redeemed, and which
viii be richer thar any now farmed.
Ihere are altogether. in the East
seventeen States every one of which
has more than a million acres of
SWampS, and there are twelve others
each of which has a quarter of a
million to one million acres that could
NC 0dSlIN OIdiI1cu.
TfEe Sacramento Valley.
The average man Of the East thinks
OF California as arid rather than wet.
he knows that a great part of it is
irrigated, and he looks upon much of
it as a desert. Nevertheless, that State
a some OF the richest swamp lands
Of the world. The Sacramento river,
which runs through the middle of it,
has a valley several hundred miles
long. and in that basin there are some
millions OF acres which the Govern
ment ~geographers have just finished
mapping. Great drainage works are
going on there. and these include some
OF the biggest sWtanlp reclamation
schemes of the Union A few years
ago that land vas worth nothing. AS
1ast as it IS reclaimed it Will sell for.
from 500 to $1,000 an acre, and some
OF 1t IS ALREADY covered with farms
where asparagus. celery, tomatoes and
are raised for shipment to
San Francisco and other parts OF the
West. In the Sacramento river they
put bikes about an island and
pumped out the water, and that island
has the largest asparagus farm of the
They have made great drains
nave redeemed lands now de-
voted to celery. and vegetables are
raised which are shipped from there to
East. Some millions of dollars have
already been expended upon that work
and now that the surveys have been
completed the drainage projects Will
increase manifold.
In talking with the g~eographers as
to the Sacramento valley one Of them
told me that the trouble there was that
had taken possession of the
country about a thousand years too
For ages past, nature has been
bringing down the earth Washings
the mountains. but she has not.
about one thousand years, finished
her Job. The silt has lodged along the
banks of the rivers and built up the
land there, leaving troughs on each
side which the floods have turned into
swamps. These can be reclaimed but
channels must be cut, and h land so
protected that the streams will not
Some of the stands which
been redeemed at the mouth of
Sacramento will have to be taken
and a channel sufficiently large
the river created.
An Empire ON the Mississippi.
About the same might be said of the
Mississippi valley. 1t is still earth
in the making. The Gulf of Mexico, so
the scientists tell me. once extended
than 900 miles farther north,
and all the LAND of the delta is made
UP of the rich earth ~Washings brought
down by the great river. They have
built up the bed of the gulf and
forced the sea back. Moreover. the
streams have dropped their deposits
close to their banks. and have thus